Mating Season
by Kuro Shiro Sama-Sama
Summary: A comedy with a bit of romance. Both Sonic and Amy are acting out of character to the point of concern from all of their friends. This can't be good at all can it? Why does Sonic want to bite Amy's quills? And how does a show with no concept of time or seasons have a mating season? Mainly SonAmy with other occasional pairings, rated t, more comedy and romance based, no smut.
1. Chapter 1

**So while I could give you a longer intro about how I got to this point I'll just give you the bullet point version: 1. Boyfriend got me into Sonic stuff. 2. I've been playing some of the games with the boyfriend. 3. Watched Sonic Boom the TV show now and again 4. Has a love/hate relationship with the franchise in general. 5. Taking up writing fanfic again to get my old fanfic audience back and to get more serious about writing in general again!**

 **So this fanfic is basically what would happen if I wrote an episode for Sonic Boom the TV show. And I should probably state my sort of policy I have when it comes to Sonic related stuff...**

 **BEFORE WE BEGIN: While this story does involve a popular pairing (that being SonAmy) I will not be writing any graphic material involving furry fetishism... It's not my thing... The farthest sex involving these furry little critters will go in any of my fics is that it'll either be heavily implied or hinted at happening/having happened off screen, sex might/will be referred to as "mating", and a bonus is that you'll get loads of weird animal trivia (because from 1am to 4am I suddenly turn into the Ultimate Zooligist/Animal Breeder)**

 **And with this fanfic in particular – it's intended to be a comedy, if it's sexy to you, you do you and I hope you enjoy it though it's not my main goal...**

 **I should also apologize ahead of time for characters being a little out of character every now and again as well just because um... *cough* the title *cough*...**

 **I also need to apologize for Sticks... I love this cute little feral badger, I think she's a nice addition to the cast and I love the fact she's feral, a little bit crazy and aware of the fourth wall moreso than other characters. But because she's a relatively new character and I'm pretty new to this fandom myself, I apologize ahead of time if I make her seem out of character or if I write her as a bit too feral and more animal-like. And in the past I know my breaking the fourth wall has gotten a bit obnoxious... But don't worry, I'll keep it restricted to MOSTLY Sticks with occasional jabs at the fourth wall from other characters (almost everyone takes jabs at the fourth wall in the show, but Sticks seems to have the most awareness of it overall)**

 **Sorry Chapter 1 comes with disclaimers – new to fandom, I want to make a good impression. I haven't done the fanfic thing in a few years...**

 **But if you're ok with all that and are interested in what I have to offer, keep on reading. Now presenting my first Sonic fanfic of any kind:**

 **Mating Season**

The Unnamed Village hadn't been subjected to one of Eggman's schemes for a while. Everything was peaceful, mundane and lacing in action and excitement even moreso than that one episode where Eggman went back to college to actually become a doctor by getting his doctorate.

Perhaps due in part to the lack of have an egghead to crack, Sticks – the badger – found herself home alone and setting up traps, convinced and determined to set up even more ways to defend herself should Eggman show up again. She had convinced herself that his absence was all apart of some plan (which may or may not be caused or influenced by mole men or the Illuminati or both).

Said plan most likely involved leaving the Unnamed Village in a state of undisturbed peace. From there the badger's mind would wander from idea to idea.

She thought about Eggman gaining control over a creature made of fire and another creature made of shadows and using their combined powers to burn the town until nothing was left...

No... That could never happen!

Then her mind wandered further – imagining Eggman gaining control over a creature made of water and having that chaotic beast drown the town and all of it's inhabitants...

No... Not quite right...

Surely Eggman's absence was due to him contacting aliens from another planet and he gained an upper hand – able to manipulate them with some fort of horn that he could use to suppress them and their alien abilities...

Still no...

The badger worried herself silly.

And before she could pester the author of this fanfic about their use of breaking the fourth wall, she decided to drop the issue and go to the beach for a swim and to stake the place out should Eggman or any of his robots be taking a beach day there...

It was a scenic and perfect looking day though she found she was the only one there... Instinctively feeling like it was far too quiet and far too empty she crept slowly to the ocean should anyone be watching. And once at the water she hunched over, searching the shore for any sea shells – preferably sharp ones, good for making spear heads and arrowheads and impromptou stabby things should an agent of the Illuminati or a mole man sneak up behind her.

"Hey... it pays to be paranoid" she said with a wink and a nod to the audience as well as the author who enjoyed the meta humor to an almost nauseating degree...

While scouring the sand for shells and piling up her finds in a near little pile on her left she heard footsteps through the grass running back and forth. Whoever was out there seemed content on hiding in the grass... and daring to look back, the badger saw a tuft of pink fur and quills scurrying about through the tall grass.

"Amy, what in blazes are you doing?"

A small yelp in surprise confirmed it was the pink hedgehog who came out of the grass holding a bundle of what looked like dry grass, driftwood and assorted textiles...

"I'm sorry Sticks. I've been... Busy..." Said Amy, wiping sweat off her brow. She tried keeping her usual happy and calm composure but inside she was panicking, a total nervous wreck who didn't want to get caught. And even though she was simply collecting materials from nature – which was innocent enough – her intentions and reasons for her sudden interest in foraging were fueled by... other natural thoughts...

"What's with the drywood? You adding an extention onto your house?" Sticks asked, Amy sitting down next to her and her little pile of weaponized sea shells.

"I've been building something on my own... Well, more like renovating I guess... Getting rid of old furniture, getting new furniture, I've even been building some actually!"

"Impressive. How'd you manage that?"

"I hammer pretty well."

"Are you sure you're Amy?" Sticks had to ask, watching her friend put her little bundle aside and taking off her shoes to wet her feet in the water.

"I'm just going through a bit of a phase."

"Aaaand... What kinda phase are we talkin about? I've never even seen you assemble your own make-up table!" Sticks taunted. "Heck, the only thing I've seen you put together is those curtains you hung up because Sonic didn't wanna go textile shopping with you and somehow Knuckled got knocked out cold with a curtain rod to the face..."

Amy giggled. "I'm just sort of doing this for me..."

"You know if you're renovating or building or whatever, I can help you fix up the place. We get some traps by the front door, line the window with barbed wire, put some fire ants in the rose bushes..."

But even though the hedger offered to help Amy with renovations free of charge the hedgehog shook her head to decline. "If you put traps in my house if might backfire and hurt the urchins."

"Urchins?" Sea urchins came to Stick's mind... But what in the world did Amy want with sea urchins?

But rather than answering, Amy blushed a bit and picked up her things. "It's nothing honestly... Like I said, I'm just going through a phase."

And sticks, while a bit miffed started to put two and two together, dropping the subject. Patting Amy on the back she asked "So about your renovations... You think seashells could tie the place together?"

And so both girls went back to Amy's place with as much driftwood and seashells they could both carry.

And once Sticks saw the inside of Amy's house and witnessed her wild renovating, her suspicions were confirmed as what used to be a quaint, neat and normal house was now a mess of nature with grass all over the floor and crawling along the walls to the point of covering the bottoms of the windows – the tops of which had pieces of driftwood hammered into the wall to cover them up.

Knowing full-well what was going on with Amy, there was apart of Sticks that was still shocked by the sudden change in character... This place was looking more like a shelter for when the mole men and technicolor aliens started attacking.

"When you said renovations I thought you meant changing the curtains or painting the walls, not building a bunker... And if you need a bunker you could've hid in mine..." Sticks slowly backed away, trying not to trip on loose chunks of grass stuck together with mud and clay.

Amy didn't even seem to acknowledge Sticks being there, just unfolding various textiles and holing them up to the windows. "Urchins need a good place to live. I'm also wondering whether I should change these curtains. I'm considering a cobalt blue or a bubblegum pink what do you think?"

But Amy's question would never be answered as Sticks bolted out of there as soon as possible. Running to her bunker perhaps even faster than Sonic, she locked all the doors and windows, gathered all of her emergency rations and inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again and asked:

"Really? We're doing this?" She waited for a moment but got no response. "I mean... We don't even have regular seasons of this show. We've had a frozen pond next to a desert! There's no sense of setting! No sense of time! I don't even know when I was born! So really?! We're doing this?!"

And much to Stick's surprise she heard a shy voice reply with:

"Yeah, but it's honestly just for comedy, so don't expect straight up porn..."

 **End of chapter 1**

 **Keep in mind, while this won't be pornographic at all, chapters after this one are going to be about the closest thing I can get to writing porn without it actually being porn... It's very funny... Remember: this is mainly a comedy. On the side however: you can also get animal trivia!**

 **To clarify just one more thing before the meat of the fanfic really begins, the main pairing is SonAmy not only because I like the two together, but also because they seem to be the only hedgehogs in Sonic Boom. I have no idea what direction they'll take Shadow in or if he'll come back and as much as I love Silver, I doubt they'll do anything actually interesting with his character again – poor baby. I don't know if I'll bring the other male hedgehogs in. If the show gives me more of an idea on what they'll do with Shadow and if they EVER bring Silver back, I might include them...**

 **Only real animal trivia for this chapter is that "urchin" is a term that can be used for a baby hedgehog. There will be more animal trivia further down...**

 **Next chapter: If you really wanna see Sonic fawn over Amy, prepare to die of SonAmy overdose with the bonus of getting animal trivia to backup your ship. Granted he will be out of character to some extent... Knuckles too, but he's a bucket of lost potential in this iteration of the character...**


	2. Chapter 2

While Sticks found herself talking to a fanfic author (who obviously had no life or hope of becoming a real author), there was another hedgehog confusing his friends to the point of concern...

Amy certainly had a thing for a certain blue hedgehog but said blue hedgehog was... well... He hinted at liking the pink member of his species but denied feeling anything if asked and whenever his actual thoughts and feelings about her started to slip. If he thought about it too hard he'd just get confused so he tried not to think about her as anything other than an ally in battle and a somewhat close friend...

But then things started getting weird and more confusing than usual.

Sonic started thinking about Amy all the time. If Eggman decided to attack today Sonic would've lost because he couldn't get Amy off of his mind. Though as much of a nuisance it was to think about her all the time... it wasn't _that_ bad... it was kind of nice in a way...

But of course as the hero he knew he shouldn't think about girls all the time – not with Eggman around all the time! Then again Eggman hadn't shown up in a while and Amy's fur and quills were a pretty color... It was this soft pink color like a flower... Heh... like a rose...

But when he found himself thinking like that he smacked himself back to his senses. He didn't want to think about her that way but he couldn't stop himself. As much as he wanted to stop himself he knew he couldn't ask Tails for help... that'd be too awkward.

Tails was still a kid. He wouldn't know anything about talking to girls He was smart but really smart when it came to machines – not girls.

He certainly couldn't talk to Amy and all of her floofiness...

And then he found himself thinking about her again – wanting to rub his fingers through her quills, wanting to bite them even. And he started to panic... Tails was too smart to help and Knuckles was too dumb to...

Wait... KNUCKLES WAS DUMB!

So poor Sonic dashed around the Unnamed Village to find Knuckles. Though the poor blue hedgehog got easily lost in thought – thinking about Amy of course. Whenever they were battling or if she was trying to "express herself" by dragging him textile shopping or to a chick flick... She was pretty cute either way... And she probably meant well... He just wasn't into that stuff normally...

Then he realized he was thinking about Amy again and he was starting to creep himself out. He felt disgusting for thinking about wanting to bite her quills almost constantly and how these thoughts would come out of no where with even the most mundane thoughts mutating into such a weird need to bite her. What's worse is that poor Sonic didn't even realize he was still running while arguing with himself internally and he crashed face-first into a tree with such force and speed that he got full-frontal splinters and gave the tree a Sonic-shaped hole...

He realized now how off his game he was... He needed a break... He was _way_ too out of character...

Then he finally remembered he'd been trying to find Knuckles...

Knuckles – the echidna – sat on a rock looking out at the ocean and contemplating his purpose. From time to time he considered taking up a hobby like gemology – whenever the team had a mission that involved sacred stones or gems in general, he found he had an affinity – no – a basic instinct to take care of those gems. Though he didn't know why...

He thought about taking a trip on his own without the rest of the team to do some more deep thinking on the subject of who he was, where he came from or even figuring out why he was the last of his kind...

And then Sonic trapped him on the shoulder while caused Knuckles to abandon the thought of finding a floating island in the sea.

"Hey Sonic... Wait, why do you have even more spikes than before?" asked Knuckles, noticing the fact that Sonic got new 'spikes'.

"Knuckles, I don't have time for the writer's clever but TOTALLY obvious way of complaining about your character. I have a problem." said the very anxiety-laden hedgehog.

Knuckles thought to himself 'wait, I have a character?' but refrained from saying it out loud. Instead he asked and he jumped down from the rock: "well, what's the problem?"

Sonic looked to his left, then his right and then back at Knuckles, grabbing him by one of his dreads and saying "I need you to punch me in the face..."

"Wut?"

"I need you to punch me in the face!" shouted Sonic. "It's urgent!"

"And why would I do that?" Asked Knuckles. "I know I'm not the deepest thinker but I know for a fact I have no reason to punch you... Although those new spikes do look suspicious..."

"Well I got a little too up close and personal and ended up doing more than just hugging a tree... Though I don't know if self-anointing* is gonna fix this..." Sonic sighed, dreading the thought of how he'd get all of the splinters out of his fur.

"OH! Is that why you wanted me to punch you so bad?"

Not the actual reason Sonic wanted to get a punch to the face but it did make him forget about Amy for a minute. "Y-Yeah! Maybe you can punch me hard enough to knock all the splinters out! That's totally what I was thinking!"

"I can try... You can solve a lot of problems just by hitting things." Knuckles started doing warm up stretches. "Although, I don't know if it'll fix your face completely... And I guess you can't solve internal conflicts by hitting them all the time... Some internal conflict maybe but not ALL internal conflict... Anything on your mind?"

"Oh, no, I totally wasn't thinking about Amy or anything. I was just-!"

"Oh? What about Amy?" Knuckles asked, cracking his joints.

"Um... I don't know..." Sonic blushed a bit. "What do you think about Amy?"

"She hammers pretty well. She's pretty strong. Maybe the second strongest on the team?" Knuckles said. "Like when you think about it, you're all about speed, Tails is smart and I'm the tough guy. Amy's pretty balanced in comparison."

But Sonic stopped listening past "she hammers pretty well" and Knuckle's clever analysis of Amy's character flew over his head entirely because the more he thought about the phrase "she hammers pretty well" the more it sounded like an innuendo.

"Hey um... So what do you mean when you say Amy 'hammers' well?" Sonic asked, goofy and slightly lovestruck expression having changed into a jealous one with blood thirsty undertones.

"Well... She fights with a hammer and uses it... well..." Knuckles said it slowly to see if there was anything wrong with what he said which to his knowledge – there wasn't.

"That's what I thought..." Sonic tried to get back on track. He needed to get rid of his splinters and hopefully his thoughts about Amy. Hopefully Knuckles wasn't planning an attempt to get her alone to bite her quills. Just the thought of it made the hedgehog's blood boil (especially since Knuckles as an echidna and not a hedgehog).

Noticing the change in his friend and teammate's demeanor Knuckles asked "wait, so you're getting all worked up over Amy? I dun get it. And didn't you come to me to get punched in the face?"

"FINE! Punch me in the face if that's how you feel about it!" Sonic shouted, Knuckles appearing as more of a threat than a friend and finally getting that punch to the face he so desperately sought which caused every splinter in his fur to come out and fall into the sand...

On the other hand he also got flung back to the same tree he put a hole in before and got a back full of splinters in exchange for having given it yet another hole in his image... And with a crooked nose to boot...

Knuckles didn't even bother going back for him, instead just getting on top of his rock again and thinking about how he could get his hands on an emerald of some kind...

 **Chapter 2 end**

 **Animal trivia for chapter 2:**

 **The reason Sonic is acting out of character is because male hedgehogs tend to be more aggressive about mating to the point of getting into fights with other hedgehogs in an attempt to impress a female. So to my surprise: the way SonAmy is presented in the Sonic franchise is inaccurate to how actual hedgehogs mate. If you wanted a more accurate version it would actually be SONIC being clingy and stalker-y over Amy... But of course that's only if you base their behaviors off of actual hedgehogs. That's not a requirement for me to get a kick out of the pairing, I just thought it was funny.**

 **Since Sonic and Amy appear to be the only 2 consistent hedgehogs in the Boom TV show and since I have no idea what they're going to do with Shadow or with Silver (if they ever do anything interesting with his character again the poor baby), I had Sonic get fighty with Knuckles instead just because Knuckles is a familiar character and also because there's more opportunity for slapstick.**

 **Another painful fact about hedgehog mating is that the actual mating process involves the male biting the female's quills... So the pure OUCH factor aside, Sonic isn't just pulling kinky stuff out of his ass, that's based on what actual hedgehogs do.**

 **Now to the specific terms/term:**

 ***self anointing - self anointing refers to a specific behavior hedgehogs do in which they'll feel the need to compulsively lick themselves and cover themselves in their own saliva. They might do this out of anxiety, especially after encountering a new smell they've never smelled before. As such, younger hedgehogs do this more often than older ones.**

 **Special thanks:**

 **To my boyfriend for being so analytical of this series as well as analytical of gameplay mechanics as I sort of borrowed "Knuckles's clever analysis" regarding the main 4 characters from him. Across the many, many Sonic games as well as the TV shows (namely Sonic X and Boom), Amy has proven to be a well-balanced character. She's strong like Knuckles, smart like Tails and almost as fast as Sonic. She's the most well rounded of the group, which occasionally makes me wonder why Sticks is even a character in Boom at times if not only to fill out the five man band trope. I'm told Amy's presented in a similar way in the comics but I haven't read those...**

 **Next chapter: more trivia, pairing shenanigens and poking fun at the sexualization of anthropromorphised animals**


	3. Chapter 3

**As I said in the first chapter: this is intended to be more of a comedy than straight up porn... But I think this is as close as I can get to writing porn for this franchise without it actually being straight up porn... Prepare for comedic impact as I sink deeper and deeper into this fandom that I was afraid of years ago...**

 **(EDIT: 12/22/17: If you're reading this, you might notice some fixed typos and nice additions to the chapter thanks in part to mass-editing. Enjoy the fic.)**

Sonic walked back to Tail's workshop hoping to find bandages for his nose and maybe a machine that'd pick every individual splinter out of his fur and quills. About to open the door and walk inside, he immediately froze when he heard Amy's voice inside which caused his crooked nose to straighten up...

He wanted to both go inside to pick her up and run off with her into the sunset and hide behind a huge bush to avoid her. Though he couldn't tell what would be a better move As much as he wanted to stroke her quills and pinch her ears he also wanted to get himself back to normal and stop thinking about that pink pile of fur and floof...

Instead he stuck his ear to the door to try overhearing the conversation...

"So what do you need that many nails for?" He could hear Tails asking... "And do you even have any experience using power tools?"

"I'm just doing some renovations around the house... And OF COURSE I have experience using power tools Tails. My weapon of choice is a hammer – it's a super powerful too in and outside of combat!" Amy sounded so cheerful and just hearing her talk about her hammer made Sonic turn into a puddle of mush.

"Um... So you just need nails, right?"

"Just nails are alright, preferably the long kind."

"What sort of renovations are these again?"

"OH, just making room for some urchins is all. I guess you can say lately I've taken up the hobby of building furniture in addition to interior decorating."

It was hearing the term 'urchins' that made Sonic turn completely red and back away from the door. On the one hand he wondered why she didn't just call them 'hoglets*' which was a more commonly used term... On the other, this explained all of his his weird behavior and thoughts about the pink member of his species still inside and treating Tails like a full-service hardware store.

He breathed in, breathed out, loosened his neck scarf slightly and walked back to the door to attempt to knock... And then it occurred to him that females should be impressed... Of course combat abilities were impressive on their own but Amy was too used to seeing that. In fact she was an active combatant herself... She already knew how awesome he was when it came to battling...

But before he could think of another plan the door opened and Amy was standing in the doorway with a smile on her face. "Oh... Um... Hi..." She sounded surprised to see him.

"Hey... Um... I totally wasn't just waiting outside to talk to you at all. Um... You busy right now?" Sonic asked without fully comprehending what he was saying because all he could think about was floof.

"Just waiting on Tails to get a few things for me. I've been busy at home lately and why spend money on nails when I can just borrow em from a friend?" She seemed so cool and casual about it, like it wasn't a big deal. He wondered how much she actually thought about it. She seemed like she was anticipating it herself but at the same time she was way too relaxed...

Meanwhile he was losing his mind trying to keep his quills on his back and his head on his shoulders, she was playing home designer and being just as cute and perky as ever...

"So what are you doing out here?" She asked.

"Um... Well..." He hesitated. Hesitating wasn't cool. "Actually, you wanna go anywhere? I'm not up to anything at the moment and Egghead looks like he's been on vacation so we have loads of free time."

"Tempting, but renovating has taken a lot of time out of my schedule..."

"Well, everyone needs a break once in a while. You're not tired from working so hard?"

She smiled even bigger and cuter. "I guess I have built some extra muscle working around the house so much." She flexed in a girly way that just made her seem even more adorable. He almost wanted Eggman to show up just so she could show off her combat skills. But you know, of course he wanted Eggman to stay as far away as possible because how else could he get Amy all alone?

"So, you wanna do anything or go anywhere? I mean, I'm up for anything. I'd even be up for going to that farmer's market with you to go textile shopping if you want."

Meanwhile Tails – still inside and looking for those long nails Amy requested – heard Sonic mention he'd willingly go shopping with Amy and panicked... This wasn't like Sonic at all. Sonic was like his brother. In another continuity, one could say they were brothers (well, adopted of course)... But regardless of continuity, the only thing Sonic went on was adventures. And none of his adventures EVER included going shopping!

Finding a bucket of nails he went outside where the two hedgehogs were casually chatting a reasonable distance apart. "Um... Everything okay here?"

Amy looked back at the young fox. "Everything's fine. Those the nails for my project?"

"Um, yeah. Hopefully you could use them. Just give it back when you're done." Tails said in a somewhat nervous tone he didn't intend to use. Something was just off but he couldn't tell what. He handed her the bucket of nails.

"Thank you Tails, it's very sweet of you to help me out." She hugged him, lifting him up off the ground which was a little out of her character, though not in a way that was necessarily bad or alarming – unlike Sonic willingly agreeing he'd be up for a day of shopping.

And said blue hedgehog was not very pleased to see Amy showering the fox with so much affection for something so simple as letting her borrow some tools. But just before he could get mad and intervene she put Tails down.

"So Amy, you up for getting Meh Burger and taking a walk maybe?" Sonic asked, feeling like he was being ignored all for a bucket of nails and a fox that could never understand the complexities of mating season. "Or, you know, maybe we can head to your place?"

"Meh Burger sounds fine I guess." Amy answered in a chipper tone. "Thanks again for the nails. See you later maybe?"

Tails was still trying to comprehend what he was seeing but before he could tell Amy a simple 'yeah, see you later and just remember to return the nails when you're done', Sonic cut him off.

"You sure you gave Amy everything she needs?" He asked in a protective tone.

"Well yeah, all she said she needed was nails for some project or whatever..." Tails nervously responded. "Why are you getting mad at me about it?"

"Just making sure all is right..." Sonic had that blood thirsty look he had that one time that mech suit brainwashed him into becoming evil. "I need my girl to be happy..."

"Your 'girl'? Sonic, what are you even talking about?"

"You'll understand if you ever meet another fox, dog, cat or a bunny or whatever... It's complicated... Just make sure you don't get on my bad side..." And just as soon as he became an overprotective alpha-hog he went back to Amy and reverted to a pile of mush, confusing Tails even further.

They walked off...

And as soon as they were out of sight Tails quickly locked the door and yelled into his communicator.

"I DON'T FEEL SAFE! I DON'T WANNA BE ALONE!"

Knuckles responded immediately.

"Hey, everything alright? Look, don't panic. Just breathe and keep on pushing!"

As much as Tails wanted to facepalm at the echidna's stupidity he just responded. "Look, can you and Sticks just come to my workshop? I don't feel safe... I think something's wrong with Sonic..."

"Huh..." Knuckles paused. "He did see me to get punched in the face earlier. He was acting a little out of character but then again, he also had more spikes than usual!"

"I DON'T CARE! Just... Someone come over and take care of me!" Tails turned off his communicator and immediately looked for something to hug out of fear, finding nothing and deciding to hug his tails while building a fort out of sheets of metal in a corner until help arrived.

 **Chapter end.**

 **Animal trivia for chapter 3:**

 **We see a little more aggression from Sonic in this chapter, this time towards Tails (which is ironic because a fox could eat a hedgehog in reality...). Personally I sort of view Sonic and Tails as brothers in a way so expect Tails to get some extra cute treatment from me... And he's so floofy too...**

 **Another interesting fact: Male hedgehogs are aggressive about mating but females actually aren't... Sometimes they'll just get bored and walk away even if males are fighting for her affections right in front of her. So if you're wondering why Amy has been somewhat of a ditz, way too relaxed while Sonic is losing his mind or if she seems like she's avoiding being with Sonic at all, it's based on actual female hedgehog behavior. In fact in terms of actual hedgehog mating habits, females can actually go a whole mating season without conceiving once because they may not even be particularly interested in mating. But more about those facts as the fanfic progresses...**

 **MATING SEASON: Sonic desperately tries to get laid and Amy is just like "meh" (so far...)**

 **Specific terms:**

 **Hoglet: The more commonly used term to refer to a baby hedgehog is 'hoglet'. I have seen other people call them 'urchins' but hoglet is the more common name for them. If you wanna get cute about it: if you consider Classic Sonic to be a baby version of Sonic, he'd technically be Sonic the Hoglet...**

 **Next chapter: Sonamy shenanigans, some slight Knuckles and Sticks shipping (not sure if I ship, they just look nice together based on design), and Tails losing his mind...**

 **Poor floofy...**


	4. Chapter 4

**I feel a little weird shipping Knuckles and Sticks. On the one hand, in the show they seem like they have the highest awareness of the fourth wall (Sticks has addressed the audience directly multiple times and during the robot city arc, at the end of each episode Knuckles complains about cliffhangers after the screen goes black before the credits roll in), they're both "wild" compared to the other characters (Sticks is a feral badger, Knuckles is an islander), they both play the role of the tough guy. Kind of like Danganronpa ships, I feel like Sonic ships are partially based on what character designs look cute together? Maybe that's just me.**

 **(EDIT: 12/22/17: If you're reading this, you might notice some nice additions to the chapter thanks in part to mass-editing. Enjoy the fic.)**

Normally to get Sonic to go shopping with her, Amy would have to grab him by his little hipster neck scarf and start dragging him behind her for miles, but much to her surprise he was willingly walking – not running – by her side, actively participating in a conversation with her. She talked about her renovations and how she covered all of her old furniture up with grass and he gave her constructive criticism on how to make the place better and more comfortable. She talked about Sticks giving her a whole lot of seashells that same day and he made suggestions on what to do with them.

It was nice not having him run off to do something more "fun" with the guys...

"So, you want anything to eat?" Sonic asked.

"Meh, I'm not too hungry. Just thinking about whether I should paint the walls a new color. I bought a whole bunch of textiles and I'm thinking of changing the curtains, but I don't know if I should paint the walls to match or contrast... So far I'm learning toward ocean blue curtains and maybe using all the pink fabric I got to make pillows." She blushed a bit. "I just want the urchins to have a nice place to live is all."

"I honestly don't think the hoglets are going to care about what their room looks like immediately... Wait until they can actually see before worrying about what their room is going to look like." Sonic said, pointing out that hedgehogs were born blind and likely wouldn't care about whether the living room curtains were pink or blue or some color in between.

"Good point, but by then I'd be too busy... Urchins gotta eat after all. Can't forage while blind." Amy sighed. "Well, it'll be worth it either way. I just want them to have a nice place to live for however long we live in that little house."

"Heh... Well, I can always come over and help you fix the place up."

"Um... Well... Speaking of fixing things... What happened to your back?" Amy asked, noticing now that he had quills on top of his quills.

"I got into a fight with a tree..."

Taking a pair of tweezers out of her pocket she asked. "You want me to help?"

And with a look of relief and admiration for the pink hedgehog he got down on his knees, her hands in his and he said "YES. IMMEDIATELY."

She just giggled in a cute and nonchalant way. "Fine fine. But how about you avoid fighting with trees in the future?"

"Alright." And so Sonic picked her up, dashed under a large, shady tree, and sat the lady down on the grass before collapsing into her lap with his quills facing her.

Amy couldn't help but get a kick out of him and proceeded to get rid of all of the extra quills...

And while the two hedgehogs of the group were canoodling under a tree, Knuckles was trying to find Sticks since Tails didn't want to be alone in his workshop...

He went to her burrow of a house straight away, knocking on the door. "EY! We need you at the workshop! It's urgent!"

But all Knuckles could hear was Stick's muffled voice, talking to someone... Granted nobody ever came to her house... And she didn't have a communicator so he thought that she must've been talking to someone imaginary. Or a ghost. Or some other creature invisible to anyone else other than Sticks...

He pounded on the door again. "IT'S URGENT! QUIT TALKING TO YOUR IMAGINARY FRIENDS AND OPEN THE DOOR!"

"H-HOLD ON A MINUTE!" Sticks yelled before talking to her invisible friend some more.

Knuckles backed away from the door and started doing some light stretching but just as he was about to run to the door and knocked it down, Sticks opened it up.

"I was having a very nice conversation thank you... Now what do you want?" She asked, arms folded and tapping her foot impatiently.

"See, this is why we all have communicators. It would save a lot of exposition."

"AS IF I'M GOING TO HAVE SOME TECHNOLOGY ON MY CLOTHES THAT NEVER TURNS OFF AND IS ALWAYS LISTENING!"

He sighed. "Tails is afraid of being alone in the workshop so we should go see how he's doing. He says Sonic's been acting weird. He asked me to punch him earlier so I did but then he just left..."

"What did you expect him to do?"

"Well I expected him to come back and get punched again originally but then I saw him walk off so I was doing some thinking... I need to get my hands on an emerald!"

"A what?"

"It's a shiny green rock."

"And if you get your hands on this shiny green rock, can I... hold onto it for safe keeping... maybe?"

"Sure! But first we gotta check on Tails."

"What's going on with helicopter butt?"

Knuckles turned on his communicator. "Hey buddy, we need an update. Where are you and how are you holding up?"

Tails responded. "They're gone, they've been gone for a while... But nothing FEELS right... I feel like time is vast and space is bendable! Nothing makes sense! Everyone just seems out of character!" There was a pause. "What if I'M out of character?!"

"Cool your jets man. We're on our way." Knuckles ended the call. "You coming with me?"

"Personally I kind of wanna stay in my little bunker and keep talking to my new friend beyond the fourth wall." Sticks scratched behind her ears. "I was planning on sitting the rest of this schlock out by hunkering down and talkin' to the writer about floof and snugglin' animals but-."

"Wait... YOU'VE BEEN TALKING TO A WRITER?!"

"Well yeah but-."

"CAN YOU TELL THEM TO GIVE ME AN EMERALD?!" Knuckles begged. "I mean the almost constant use of fourth wall breaking would be a drag in terms of story-telling and it's tragic that the same sense of humor is being used at every turn... But I _REALLY_ want that emerald! Preferably a big one! So big I can sleep on top of it!"

"You're missing my point... I don't want any part of this schlock. I just wanna hunker down, sharpen my spears, things like that. Besides, I already know what's going on so why would I-?" And then Knuckles picked the badger up and put her over his shoulder like a rolled-up carpet. "And what do you think you're doing?!"

Knuckles started running straight for Tails' workshop with the badger on his shoulders. "If you already know what's going on, you need to tell Tails! AND I WANT AN EMERALD!"

"I wanna go home you echidna creep!" She somehow managed to kick him in the eye while struggling to get out of his grasp but despite him exclaiming 'ow' he just kept on running. "I KNOW HOW ECHIDNAS MATE, YOU'RE REALLY CREEPING ME OUT! IF YOU LOVE ME JUST PUT ME DOWN AND LET ME GO HOME!"

But poor Sticks was ignored and Knuckles just kept running in the direction of the workshop. "IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON YOU NEED TO TELL TAILS!"

And coldly she pointed out: "Don't you have a communicator?"

And Knuckles stopped cold in his tracks. "OH YEAH! I do have one of those..." And he turned his communicator back on, not letting go of Sticks but instead holding onto her even harder than before so she wouldn't get away.

She whimpered, feeling helpless and genuinely fearing for her life with her newfound knowledge of echidna mating habits and knowing that Knuckles was the last of his kind. "Knuckles will you please just put me down?" But she was ignored...

"If I put you down you're going to run home or kick me again..."

"YOU AIN'T HELPIN' ME CALM DOWN KNUCKLEHEAD!"

And on the other side of the communicator all Tails could hear everything and imagined that something horrible was happening to all of his friends and that his paranoia was justified, causing him to look for large machinery to block the doors and windows of the workshop...

So many horrifying noises were coming out from Knuckle's side of the communicator that Tails imagined he and Sticks were trying to kill each other. He heard Knuckles exclaim 'you kicked me in the stomach!' while Sticks shouted that she only kicked him in self defense and from there all he heard some there was muffled yelling and footsteps and Sticks occasionally yelling something about mates.

Teammates?

Running mates?

Out of curiosity he scurried to his computer and looked up the term on the default search engine which took him to an online dictionary.

He read the multiple definitions out loud.

"Mate...

Noun...

1: each of a pair or birds or other animals. "a male bird sings to court a mate"

2: a fellow member or joint occupant of a specified thing "his tablemates"

Verb...

1: (of animals or birds) come together for breeding; copula-..."

Of course he was smart, he knew young animals came from somewhere but the thought of his friends... The people he'd known for years in addition to Sticks. It was a fact of life no one really wanted to acknowledge wholeheartedly. And currently he was both embarrassed and afraid after looking at some surprisingly graphic clip art accompanying the definition of 'mate' as a verb. The images just kept going down the page...

Wolves.

Birds.

Rabbits.

Dogs.

Cats.

Bears.

And what disturbed him the most were the graphic illustrations of hedgehogs and foxes...

It put the awful idea in his head and Sonic and Amy were – NO. He couldn't bear to think about it. Sonic was his bro. BUT EVEN BROS HAD LIMITS. The pictures of foxes too, they urked him on a personal level as the ones in the picture also happened to have yellow fur which put awful ideas in his head about Zooey and...

He stopped, wanting to smash his computer on the floor and never touch technology again, maybe become like Sticks and live in a cave surrounded by nature and talking about the mind readers from beyond the stars armed with gene bombs to destroy the planet until every organism melted down into a primordial ooze...

"I don't even wanna know anymore..." He said solemly to himself, about to walk back to his hidey hole of sheet metal in the corner when there was suddenly a large BAM trying to knock the door down.

And just outside Sticks had wrestled Knuckles to the ground, sitting on top of him and hitting him with a rock in what she claimed was self defense but looked more like assault as Knuckles tried to protect his nose and eyes by blocking with his arms.

"Don't you DARE grab me like that again echidna creep! You know how scared I was?!" She continued to swing the rock at him but swing after swing her attacks were getting weaker and weaker and all she wanted to do was go home and talk to the writer of this weird and miserable little fanfic about how she now hated them and wanted to see them get crushed by a tree and berate them on how they were probably a closeted furry – a term Sticks herself just got acquainted with earlier that day.

And when her attacks stopped completely and just turned into crying Knuckles sat up, hands on Stick's shoulders. "I know I'm not the smartest... But whatever you're upset about was caused due to a misunderstanding."

"Ya know I'm not even sure anymore... First the fourth wall was eviscerated... And then YOU-!"

"Are going to get an emerald! You said you wanted to get an emerald right?" Knuckles – big lug that he was – tried to defuse the situation. "Well, after all this is over and we talk to Tails, why don't we look around the island to find one?"

"You better not be lyin' to me..."

"I'm not. I want to find some too. And you like shiny things."

"I do like shiny things..." And she pondered it for a moment. "Deal." And she hugged the echidna as hard as she could.

Unlucky for Tails he opened the door at that exact moment and he suddenly got horrible flashbacks of the images he saw online – suddenly thinking the badger and the echidna were 'mating' right on his door step...

And so he just retreated back into his corner...

 **Chapter 4 end**

 **Yeah so Tails is pretty much the kid who discovers what sex is and who's then horrified by the action because they ended up learning about sex in the wrong way (my definition of 'the wrong way' being by looking at porn straight away or relying on fanfic for sex ed rather than having a formal talk about it with parents, doctors or with a sex educator in a school). I don't see Tails being a very sexual character. He's too innocent and cute and his tails are so FLOOFY...**

 **But since Boom is a much more self aware show and it seems like they aged all of the characters up to some extent I think Tails is probably somewhere around 12 - 14 in Boom and that seems like the prime age to mess with in terms of discovery... For better or worse...**

 **As much as this fanfic is meant to be a comedy (as well as what would happen if I got to write an actual Sonic Boom episode), it is sort of meant to poke fun at as well as commentate on different aspects of sexuality and sexual discovery in a comedic sense.**

 **Animal Trivia for chapter 4:**

 **Baby hedgehogs are actually born blind! They'll be able to see around 2 weeks after they're born. Granted several baby animals are born blind or with their eyes closed, but with hedgehogs in particular this just put the cute image in my head of Classic Sonic running around blindly while bumping into everything - like those toy hamsters that were popular years ago that had the button on their nose that would make them turn in a random direction to make them look like they're real hamsters running around. If i'm not mistaken I THINK they were called Zu-zus? I know my little cousin had one but it's long been donated...**

 **And that ends the hedgehog mating trivia... This chapter has a lot of echidna mating trivia!**

 **If you're also wondering why Sticks mentions knowing how echidnas mate and why she's freaking out so much it's because male echidnas – in addition to having four headed penises – are also known to rape female echidnas before they even wake up from hibernation. How this apparently works is that the males tend to wake up about a month earlier than the females and immediately jump on top of them. The female could wake up and realize they're mating but they won't be at a normal body temperature and it's more than likely they'll just return to hibernation again so for them there's not a clear distinction between hibernation and reproduction... In addition multiple males will attempt to mate with a single female at once (so basically an echidna orgy). The reason for that is because there a more reproductively active males than females and female echidnas don't reproduce every year...**

 **Poor Tikal and Shade man...**

 **Of course this fanfic isn't going to get into that horrible territory with Knuckles doing anything unspeakable to any of the females in the franchise, but this little piece of trivia makes echidnas even weirder... Although what's most funny about me doing all of this pointless research into animal mating habits is that based on actual echidna mating habits: Knuckles is actually close to his real life animal equivalent (minus the implied echidna rape of course). Due to the fact that real echidnas have trouble mating, it actually makes sense for the echidna character in the franchise to be "the last of his kind".**

 **Enough Trivia:**

 **Next chapter: more SonAmy, less Knuckles and Sticks and Tails trying to maintain his innocence.**


	5. Chapter 5

**This is a chapter full of adorable stuff, corny stuff and just overall SonAmy shenanigans but in the Boom continuity. COMEDY EVERYBODY!**

 **Also thanks to the reviews I had to watch the episode Tails' Crush which just turned me into Amy because I was aww-ing heavily. Granted with episodes like that for any show I find them hard to watch because they're so cringy past age 5 – but I still found it cute just because I tend to think of Sonic characters as animals and floofs first...**

 **And gosh darn it Zooey has an adorable design too, only thing I would change about it is to not have her wear such a dark red because it doesn't look the best with such bright yellow fur.**

 **But I'll gush over cute animals another time... Onto the fic:**

 **(EDIT: 12/22/17: If you're reading this, you might notice some nice additions to the chapter thanks in part to mass-editing. Enjoy the fic.)**

Just as Tails was having enough of everything going on, so was Sticks, cursing the writer for her illusion of choice in staying out of the events to unfold. She kicked Knuckles aside, getting up and entering the workshop.

"Tails, if you wanna get this schlock over with you have to face the truth... ANIMALS MATE. It's a totally normal thing! I know it's a difficult thing to realize, but you need to grow up!"

But Tails already reassembled his sheet metal house in the corner, not listening.

"Tails, don't make me come in there..."

"I'm not letting anyone in... I just wanna be a kid forever and never grow up!"

"See, this is why I don't mess with technology... You got all the wrong ideas being BEAMED into your brain and now you're just a scared pup who doesn't wanna face reality!" She pushed all of his sheet metal aside. "Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die... So quit being a baby and tell me what's been goin' on?"

The small fox continued to sit being pouty in the corner, looking at the floor and hugging his tails instead of looking at Sticks.

"Fine, you wanna play like that: I'm glad badgers can delay their fertilization - cuz I know I certainly can't deal with this! Now I'm going home, sitting tight in my bunker and that'll be the end of it!" And just as she turned for the door, she felt a pair of hands around her hips.

"Okay I'm sorry, just don't leave me alone!"

Needless to say she hugged the little guy back...

"Good to see everyone finally getting along again..." And the Knuckles picked the both of them up for another hug only to get kicked between the legs by a badger who had quite enough of the echidna's antics. "ALRIGHT! I WON'T PICK YOU UP AGAIN!"

"Good" Sticks spat. "Now why don't we head to my bunker and get you away from all of this technology helicopter butt?"

"As long as you don't show me anything weird..."

"Eh... Not something I can promise but I'll manage..."

While Sticks and Knuckles tried to deal with an anxiety-ridden Tails off screen, Amy had gotten rid of every splinter in Sonic's back and was currently petting him like a cat with his head on her lap.

Normally being in such a compromising position in public or private would make Sonic feel vulnerable and sometimes even stupid. After all he was supposed to be the cool, radical hero! And heroes didn't have time to being vulnerable. But here he was, getting his back scratched out in the open for all to see. He could almost purr like an actual cat but -being a hedgehog and not a cat- purring wasn't possible. Instead every now and again he found himself snorting just a bit...

Amy started scratching behind his ears. "It's nice not having to worry about battling all the time."

Sonic just stood silent, being content with being scratched by a pretty member of his species.

"Also I think this is the first time you've spent this much with me, just the two of us." Amy sighed, scratching her blue beau's quills. "I can't even remember the last time we had so much undisturbed time alone together."

Trying to suppress the urge to squeak he forced himself to sit up, blushing a bit. "Y-yeah... You know, fighting, friends, filler episodes that don't involve just the two of us going on our own adventures..."

"That's true..." She put her head on his shoulder, making him loosen his neck scarf. "I enjoy being with you."

"You're not bad company either." He put his arm around her hip, pulling her close. "So... I was thinking..."

"Yeah?"

And then he got a good whiff of her. "Hey, is that new perfume?"

"Oh! You just noticed now? Yeah it's new. It's this rose scent mixed with tulips. I got it just the other day." Amy being the cute girl she was just seemed to get snugglier making two drastically different parts of Sonic's brain act two drastically different ways.

Inside of his brain his rational side of his brain wrestled with the part of his brain that just wanted to MATE. And both sides of his brain were wrestling relentlessly while the body was just a shell acting of it's own accord or acting on instinct without going too far...

" _Heh... Hey baby, you wanna ride my quill?"_

"OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHAOS, WE'RE NOT SAYING THAT TO HER!"

" _But why not? I mean she wants to turn you into a blue blur if ya know what I mean..."_

"I can't do that to Amy! We're friends! Teammates!"

" _But she does smell nice and those quills look so biteable..."_

"Heh... Yeah those quills are adorable... Wait. NO! NO! She's still a friend... I need to respect that..."

" _HELLO! SHE'S RIGHT THERE! IT'S TIME TO MATE!"_

"I don't care about that... I like Amy... I don't wanna hurt her just because of some primal instinct..."

...

And then a female voice called out to him, getting him out of the wrestling match inside of his brain.

"Everything okay Sonic? You looked like you were having a nightmare..." Amy said, clearly concerned.

"Nightmare? How long was I out?"

"About 15 minutes?"

"Shoot... Sorry about falling asleep I guess..." He scooted over to maintain a certain distance away from her. "I've got some things on my mind... I wouldn't wanna bother you with them. You know, since we're friends and all..."

"But if you ever want to express your feelings, you know you can come to me, right?"

But hearing her say something so simple just made him angry... "How are you so calm about it?"

"Calm about what?" Amy tilted her head a bit as though she was confused but she still had that same smile as though she was taunting him.

"Seriously... You talk about the hoglets you're going to have and you've been trying to make room for them and you're ignoring ME! What, like, do my feelings not count of something?!" He was mad... "Amy, we've been friends since... A long time ago! Other continuities ago! Needless to say it's complicated."

"But what about it is so complicated?" Amy sat, arms crossed and actually growing frustrated herself. "If you don't expand upon these feelings, nothing will ever get solved. So just spit them out if that's whats easiest."

Scooting back closer to Amy, Sonic scratched the back of his ears.

She leaned on his shoulder again. "Just say it already... You don't need to get all blue in the face about-."

"I love you and I wanna bite your quills – I SHOULD GO." But as he got up to dash off, Amy got up with him pressing her nose against his.

"Boop"

Needless to say... He was a pile of mush on the inside. "So you're not mad?"

"Meh, I was able to tell on some level..."

"THEN HOW WERE YOU SO COOL ABOUT IT?!"

"Testing the waters I guess... So..."

"So what?"

"You wanna extend the adventure or just head to my place?"

"Well, I'm up for anything. Rolling around at the speed of sound, going to Meh Burger, farmer's market, going for a swim..."

"Sonic, you hate water."

"You make me do crazy things."

Amy booped him on the nose again, grabbing him by the arm. "Then why don't I make us something to eat and we can spend time at the beach... You know – just the two of us surrounded by nature. I mean forget about Meh Burger anyway... I can cook."

And quicker then you could be reminded of the Chez Amy episode, Sonic picked her up and dashed off to her place...

 **Chapter 5 end**

 **Oh goodness this series is perfect to work with so I don't have to break the fourth wall so much in my other fanworks... I know that was a major complaint in my Huniepop fanfic (I just really love fourth wall breakers and I wanna boop Kyu's nose and steal her clothes...)**

 **It also occurred to me that since Sonic Boom is set on an island surrounded by water, it seems like Sonic's fear of water has been ignored to some degree. It's only been brought up in 2 episodes from what I've seen so it doesn't seem like too big an obstacle compared to his Sonic X incarnation (who nearly drowned in a pool in the first episode and avoids going to the beach at all costs in the beach episode until Eggman shows up and even then faces difficulties with the ocean what with robots trying to drown him and it's AMY that ends up coming to his rescue) Just something I noticed after watching so much Sonic X for research purposes...**

 **Animal trivia for chapter 5:**

 **You got hedgehog trivia, you got echidna trivia and in this chapter we learn some of the weirdest trivia about badgers: female badgers can delay the fertilization of their eggs! They're one of the few animals that can suspend the the development of their young in the womb by delaying implantation of a fertilized egg. This is because they can maintain a small ball of cells (called a blastocyst) in suspended development for up to nine months until it implants In the womb. So for example, a female badger could mate in March, but not actually be officially pregnant with young until December. They can also have blastocysts from several different partners so it's possible that a litter of badger cubs may all share the same mom, but have different fathers.**

 **Now I envy badgers for having such a unique skill when it comes to getting pregnant...**

 **Onto the hedgehog trivia:**

 **A lot of people think hedgehogs can purr but they can't.**

 **That little fact segways nicely into this piece of trivia: the reason why hedgehogs are called hedgeHOGS is because of the sounds like make. While they do squeak like other rodents, they're also known to make snorting sounds reminiscent of pigs – another word for pig being hog. That's why the werehog concept is a big misnomer. Hog is a suffix for pig. Were is a suffix for man. So by that logic the werehog is a man pig...**

 **Special Thanks:**

 **A special thank you to NeckBreak for contributing some trivia to this little fanfic! They posted some trivia about hedgehogs of their own in the review section. Their contribution in this chapter was the fact that hedgehogs don't purr.**

 **Another special thanks goes to my boyfriend Twisted Hero for giving all of the cheesy pick up lines and other flirty and cringy lines I made use of in this chapter. He does that to me a lot to attempt to make me cringe – he does an impression of the SA1 Sonic's voice and says very cringey stuff to me to freak me out but at this point he does it so often it has no effect on me unless he says something offensive or gross... If you wanna hear me audibly die and confirm that all these lines were real, you could find our let's plays on the youtubes. So far we've played Sonic Adventure 1, Lost World, Generations and 06 – my personal favorite and a game he's actually pretty good at (so we guarantee we'll finish up the game in less than 100 episodes).**

 **On an even cornier and more sentimental note, part of Sonic's conversation with Amy (you know the one) was very loosely based on how the boyfriend confessed that he liked me with him as the Sonic. To make a Sonic X comparison, he was the Amy (Japanese dub of course) and ironically enough I was the Sonic in that scenario... Now excuse me while I get a bunch of lavender roses...**


	6. Chapter 6

**Special shout out to the reviews section as a whole! You guys are great! Everyday I wake up hoping to find a new one and so far I just smile ear to ear reading you guys' feedback.**

 **I honestly thought this fic wouldn't get the reception it has but I'm pleasantly surprised.**

 **For this chapter in particular most of the trivia is delivered in-character ala Sticks the amazing sex educator. Onto the crazy!**

 **(EDIT: 12/22/17: If you're reading this, you might notice some nice additions to the chapter thanks in part to mass-editing. Enjoy the fic.)**

Sticks somehow managed to get Tails to come to her house where he wouldn't be surrounded by any technology that'd give him the wrong impression of what animals do. There were benefits of befriending people beyond the fourth wall... Sticks learned so many things just that day. She learned things that no one else could learn in-universe... It was a very beautiful thing that no one else could truly appreciate – save Knuckles every now and then maybe but he was dumb...

After locking all of the doors and windows and giving the echidna and the fox glasses of water and offering them a bowl of fruit cut into cubes mixed with some weird-looking and smelling white meat neither of them could identify. When both of them declined the badger ate out of the bowl with her bare hands, sitting in between them on the couch.

"Um... So you were going to explain everything that was going on Sticks?" Tails asked nervously, playing with his fingers to distract himself and give him something to focus on so his imagination wouldn't wander into weird territory.

"Well, I can tell ya this: Sticks is gonna get me an emerald! She knows the writer!" Knuckles could do nothing but smile and day dream about the gemstone he could get out of this adventure.

"First off: getting that shiny green stone is no guarantee. Second: Everything is a lie Morty-uh... I mean... Tails?" Sticks put her bowl of meat and fruit on Knuckle's lap and stood up. "Sorry... Got my signals confused."

"Your point?" Asked Tails.

"Right. My point." Sticks cleared her throat. "Point is: animals mate. It's a totally normal thing. It's why we're all here right now, alive and kicking."

"AND GETTING KICKED!" Knuckles rebuttled, eating handfuls of whatever Sticks made for herself despite declining it earlier.

"Thank you Knuckles." Sticks rolled her eyes, hoping the audience would sympathize with her. "So what made you get so freaked out Tails? Are you comfortable with saying?"

"Sonic was just acting really out of character. He was just super aggressive and he was more of a jerk than normal." The fox contributed. "Then when I called you guys over all I could hear was you two fighting or doing something horrible... And then..." He looked like he was about to cry before hiding behind his tails instead as a makeshift shelter to shield what was left of his innocent brain.

"Ah... Well lucky for both of us the monotreme didn't get too outa hand. So you don't gotta hide and you don't need to be so scared, you wanna know why?"

"Why"

"Cuz matin' is a normal thing and it'll be over before you know it. Most animals mate during a certain time of year when the weather's just right. Sonic's just going through that phase. Amy is too. It'll be over once they get it over with or get bored of one another."

"But I don't wanna think about that! Me and Sonic are like brothers... We're friends! I don't wanna think about that!" Tails sat up, his tails on his lap and his arms crossed with a lil' pout on his face. "Why does he have to mate anyway?!"

"How else do you continue a species?" Sticks looked at Knuckles, who'd eaten her mysterious dish and was licking the bowl. She motioned toward him."Take Knuckles for instance. Since he's the only echidna alive in this universe, he can't procreate and continue his species. Granted I'm also unaware of whether he can feasibly settle down with a nice platypus girl because the platypus and the echidna are monotremes..."

"What's a monotreme?" Knuckles asked, putting the bowl on his head like a pathetic hat.

"A monotreme is a mammal that lays eggs." The badger answered.

"You mean like a chicken? Wait... IMA CHICKEN?!"

"Knuckles you're dumber than a sack of potatas..." She would've loved to point out that even if he was a chicken – male roosters don't lay the eggs... But he was far beyond help, with Tails even giving her a look of 'I feel your pain and know why you kicked him so much'.

"Well! If Tails is still a kid and I'm a chicken, I guess Sticks is the leader of the team until Sonic and Amy get their act together." Knuckles proclaimed, putting his feet up on a mini tree stump to use as a foot rest and putting his hands behind his head to recline and relax. "So how do you suggest getting Sonic and Amy back to normal?"

"How do they get back to normal?" Tails asked, petting his tails.

"We just let nature run it's course and see what happens. End of story." Sticks put it bluntly. "Now unless either of you have anymore questions, I'm gonna spend the rest of this pathetic adventure in my bunker ALONE..."

"But... Sonic can't mate! He's supposed to do the fighting! He's supposed to be tough! How else are we going to defend the village against Eggman?!" Tails asked, still not wanting to grasp the fact that these sorts of things just happened.

"Well hey, if they manage to breed and pop out a few hoglets, maybe they'll have kids tough enough to beat Eggman and we can all retire. Anymore questions?" Sticks – now designated team leader and sex educator – asked.

"SONIC CAN'T HAVE A KID! ARE YOU KIDDING?!" Knuckles shouted.

And then the fox backed him up. "Exactly! See? Knuckles agrees with me!"

"If Sonic has a kid, who are we gonna hang out with?"

"And who's going to help fight Eggman and every other villain of the week?"

"And who's gonna be my implied rival, friend and frat bro?"

"And who's going to provide the jerk-ish comic relief?!"

"And who else is going to help me cope with the fact I'm a chicken?!"

Sticks just walked up to a nearby wall and put her head against it, sighing and dreading the fact she was surrounded by a smol naive fox and an idiot. Whatever Amy was doing to win her man, she hoped it was fun enough to justify her absence and Sticks having to be the substitute team leader while she and Sonic were busy doing who knows what and who knows who – or what!

Tails opened the door and flew out, the not hearing anything he said over Knuckles shouting for him only for Tails to come back. And then he door slammed shut.

"Well, poor kid is doomed.. And so are we..." Knuckles sat back on Stick's couch like a sad puppy.

The angry badger turned her head to look at him. "And why are you still here?"

"Well now that my best friend and rival is having a kid I feel left out... And then when's Eggman gonna come back?! I'm just thinking a lot about my future. I'm the last of my kind and I fear I'm always going to stay that way..."

"Wow... That is some surprisingly deep analysis of your psyche." And then Sticks turned away. "But I'm too tired to deal with you. You're too stupid. So I'm just gonna stare at my walls until the Illuminati come to take me out."

"Well, I thought of a way I could be less dumb!"

"That being?"

"I'll just follow you around* until I get smarter and I'll take notes so I don't forget all the cool stuff you tell me!" Needless to stay he got Sticks to stop looking at the walls and had her reaching for a spear...

 **Chapter 6 end**

 **Animal trivia for chapter 6:**

 **Thankfully a lot of the trivia was delivered in-universe and in general there wasn't that much of it in this chapter. But if you need the bullet points version of scattered trivia we have 1. Echidnas are monotremes. 2. Platypuses are also monotremes. 3. monotremes are mammals that lay eggs instead of giving live birth.**

 **Also another thing my inner 1am-4am zoologist occasionally asks that I had Sticks bring up: if Sonic is the fastest living creature in the franchise universe, wouldn't that make him a prime cannidate to reproduce? And if speed would be a desirable trait, why wouldn't every female hedgehog (including and especially Amy) be after him constantly? And seeing that Amy is the second-fastest in the universe, how fast would their offspring be as a result? The same could also apply to Shadow – since he's supposed to be the ultimate life form/Izuru Kamakura of the universe – how isn't every female hedgehog also trying to mate with him?**

 **The things my inner zoologist asks...**

 **Specific lines:**

 ***"I'll follow you around" - An actual cute and not creepy fact I learned about echidna mating habits. Often during mating season for an echidna you'll find a train of echidnas, specifically several males following one female around. The male who stays closest to the female in the front of the train often ends up mating with her if the female is reproductively active at all in that season.**

 **Next Chapter is pure Sonamy adorableness...**


	7. Chapter 7

**Prepare for adorableness, poking fun at furry fetishism and transferring more animalistic traits and behaviors to much more human-shaped animal characters. And oh boy this is probably the cheesiest I can write... As I write it, I half cringe and half aww...**

 **I mean if you really ship the pairing this chapter might be a cute, funny and sentimental roller coaster – you can thank my boyfriend Twisted Hero for half of that just because he was the one that not only got me into this fandom but also because he had a lot of good analyses for the pairing on it's own (because like Amy, the boyfriend is also a hopeless romantic despite him trying to be 'cool' like Sonic all the time).**

 **...**

 **And you can also blame my boyfriend for giving me all of the "sexy Sonic" cringe that I shall finally put to some productive use outside of our let's plays... One of these days I will have my revenge for all of the cringe you inflict upon me...**

 **...**

 **Enjoy the floof and my decent into madness...**

Sonic dropped Amy off at her doorstep, the part of his brain that wanted to remain civil trying to tell the irrational side of his brain that just wanted to mate to calm down and not make him do anything unless she asked verbally or CLEARLY indicated that she wanted to do anything with her actions. The animal part of his brain knew what to look for: the female lies on her stomach, nose in the air, legs spread apart...

"Um... Sonic, you ok?" Amy asked, concerned as to why the blue blur was having these blue screen of death moments where he just sort of went too far into the depths of his own mind and frozen in place, just looking at the sky and looking but confused and disgusted by something. "Sonic?"

And then he shook his head, making himself cringe a bit and telling himself that he needed to keep it together. "Sorry Ames... Just... Got some things on my mind..."

She pouted, hands on her hips. "You mind telling me how you feel then instead of keeping everything bottled up?"

"Well, I'm just trying not to get ahead of myself... I don't wanna come off as a creep is all..." He squeaked a bit – not something he could control.

"Hehe~" Amy pressed her nose against his, causing him to blush. "You're so cute!"

"So... We going inside?"

Amy nodded. "Just be careful and watch where you step. It's kind of a mess..." And she opened the door to reveal a huge nest of grass covering her normal furniture and planks of wood hammered to the walls to cover the windows...

And the part of poor Sonic's brain that just wanted to mate kept egging him on...

" _She is so riding our quill tonight..."_

"Please... just shut up..."

" _We're gonna turn into a blue blur cuz the things we're doing tonight isn't safe for prime time!"_

"Shut... up..."

" _Oh please... You're already aware of those images people draw of you on the internet..."_

"T-THAT'S DIFFERENT AND OUT OF MY CONTROL! I can't help what my fans do..."

He slapped himself out of it, just going inside and laying on the grass trying to keep cool and forget about all of those weird images he found of himself on the internet while Amy was in the kitchen, making sandwiches no doubt.

It was so weird for him being here... The whole house smelled like Amy...

It was a nice smell... But he felt creepy for admitting it...

It was obvious she put a lot of effort into fixing the place even though to a non-hedgehog it'd look she she was having some sort of a going green themed mental breakdown and trying to incorporate ALL of the nature into her house in a very unstable way.

And after taking in the scenery some more he got more comfortable with things himself, not fearing being so out of character and no longer concerned about looking like a hero to anybody save for the pink hedgehog in the kitchen...

And at that moment he decided to check up on her, finding her wrapping up sandwiches in foil on a counter top full of mason jars, glass bottles, and scattered flower petals. He hugged her from behind, just trying to be cute and surprise her and unable to suppress the occasional squeak as he did so.

And she was surprisingly receptive, scratching his arms from an awkward angle. "Well aren't you forward?"

"I'm not being creepy, am I?"

"Nah. You're fine. But are you still up for the beach?"

"As long as you wanna go... You still wanna go right?"

"I was just wondering, what with you being here and all." She teasingly giggled, getting rid of the potential mate hugging her from behind fetching a basket from a cabinet under the sink.

"You know, if you need something I'm here to help..."

"I'm fine on my own, but thanks for offering anyway~."

She put a picnic basket on the counter top placing the sandwiches inside and then walking towards the fridge, only for Sonic to dash over and open it for her.

"Oh... Thanks for that." She seemed so dismissive as she reached for two mason jars on the bottom shelf.

"What else do you need? You need to get something off of a high shelf? Something from the store? Anything?" He asked, hoping to be of some use.

"It's fine. Besides, I wanna make the most of today while I have your undivided attention!" She put the two jars on the counter – a pink liquid with rose petals sitting at the bottom of each jar, the petals completely dull in color.

"What's that you have there?"

"Rosewater! I made it myself with pesticide-free rose petals. You can either boil them in water until they lose their color or let the petals sit in jars of vodka in the fridge til the liquid turns pink and the petals lose their color... Guess which method I used!"

"Are... you trying to get me drunk?" The thought of Amy trying to get him inebriated made him both blush and internally go 'aww' while also making him concerned...

"Hmm... What else should I bring?" She straight up ignored him again...

"You don't need anything else. Just sandwiches and drinks are fine... I'm not that high-maintenance..."

"It's fine really. I just want us to have a good time together."

The back of Sonic's brain started up again:

" _Heh... Good time, I'll show you a good time. Who ordered the sexy?"_

"Do you ever shut up?"

" _This is a do or die situation we have on our hands!"_

"What do you mean do or die?"

" _Assert your dominance! Show the lady you're not messing around! We are NOT getting friendzoned! That's no good! If you like it then you gotta put a leash on it!"_

"I'M NOT GONNA PUT A LEASH ON AMY!"

" _Your right... Save the leash for when things get weird on purpose."_

"YOU REALLY NEED TO SHUT UP!"

...

Sonic only managed to snap out of this inner conflict thanks to Amy tugging on his arm, dragging him to the beach... She would have no idea how much that simple action meant to him, helping him keep himself sane an preventing him from becoming too much of an animal.

Once they were there Amy set up a beach towel in the sand and took off her shoes and stockings, putting her purple stockings inside of her shoes and putting the pair of adorable sneakers on one corner of the towel to prevent it from flying all over the place on a gust of wind. She sat down, legs stretched with the basket on her lap.

"This is nice~."

"Yeah... This is fine..." No this wasn't fine, THIS WASN'T FINE AT ALL!

"So how are you feeling being around the ocean and all?" Amy asked, looking back at Sonic who was standing up completely petrified and staring out at the water.

"This is fine." It wasn't fine... He sat behind Amy, hugging her by the hips and trying not to vocalize how much he regretted the idea. It wasn't Amy that was the problem or the animalistic part of his brain constantly bombarding him with cheesy pick-up lines and perverted suggestions DeviantArt would find titillating. Really he agreed to this trip to make Amy happy and to shut that part of his brain up, but he recalled how much he hated the water once he was there and while the filthy part of his brain finally shut up, he got flashbacks of nearly drowning back when he was a hoglet himself.

But Amy was smart, noticing his hands and arms shaking, playing with her hair. "If you're scared, we can go back."

"No, No, I wanna be here... I mean, you wanted to come right?" He hugged her tighter out of anxiety. "I mean, I know I can't avoid the ocean all the time. We live on a tropical island now... I gotta get used to it..."

Amy played her her hair, blushing a bit and in a twisted sense enjoyed seeing Sonic so vulnerable. He didn't need to act so macho all the time to be loved, she loved him enough despite that. It was these corny sides of his personality she wanted to see more of. He could still be heroic, sure; but he'd already proved he was a hero to her continuities ago without the act – without even using words. She leaned back into him which caused him to squeak.

"You're not making this easy on me..." mumbled the blue hedgehog, face red.

"But if you are nervous, I'm here if you need me." the pink hedgehog's face was even pinker than normal but it fit her... Sonic envied the fact she was so open about her emotions and not always concerned about trying to look cool sometimes. "I know the beach isn't your thing but if you aren't more open about your feelings then you can't really get to the root of the prob-!" She shrieked, the sudden sensation of having her quills get bitten not being the most pleasant...

"Sorry! I... Just freaked out because I thought I saw something in the water..." Well... That was half true. "I mean if it's a problem I can-."

"Oh, you can keep going, just not so hard."

But rather than being upset by such a casual delivery every part of his brain just thought 'YES!' and he started nibbling on the ends of her quills enough not to seriously injure Amy, but enough to try establishing dominance should anyone else try to steal or disrespect his girl.

So there he was, finally biting Amy's quills on the beach while she casually ate a sandwich while looking out at the ocean. On the one hand he was finally getting what his instincts told him he wanted and on the other, the act was anxiety-reducing as well, making the water not seem to scary (from far away of course).

Then Amy held up a sandwich. "You don't want yours?"

Playfully he took a bite out of it, chewing, swallowing and hugging her tighter. "It's good." He said, followed by a lot of squeaking and the occasionally pig-like snort.

And Amy followed suit, squeaking and scratching his ears.

It was obvious they couldn't get enough of each other, what few other beach-goers and passers by distancing themselves as far away from the pair as possible should they get too wild and out of control and go from simple hugging, quill biting and loud squeaking to outright mating in the sand...

But lucky for what few onlookers there were, Amy was happy but not quite having it, dragging her distracted blue beau to the water.

"Amy come on, you know I can't swim..." And while he was somewhat nervous he also didn't really care as much with the pink member of his species holding his hand.

"It doesn't hurt to get your feet wet. Besides, you have me! Don't worry about being a hero so much when you have an adorable heroine next to you!" With that Amy got assaulted with a hug that nearly made her fall backward into the ocean .

"Seriously, why are you so casual and cute about everything?!" Sonic pressed his nose against hers.

"Heh... Boop..." She had the toothiest grin on her face. "See? This is the side of you I like the most."

"What do you mean? Right now all I can think about is going back to your place and-."

"I don't mean that. I don't just mean right now either..."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I MEAN, I already love you without you acting all cool..."

And this time she was hugged so hard that they both fell into knee-deep water followed by more giggling and loud squeaking as they splashed around, officially making whatever people were left on the beach flee the scene immediately just because of the noise.

And after about 15 minutes of undisturbed beach shenanigans Amy dragged Sonic back to their spot on the beach with her legs sore and Sonic suddenly turning into a small hoglet who didn't want to go home – out of character but kind of cute now that he could associate knee-deep ocean water with something more romantic than the fear of drowning.

"You were right, beaches ARE cool! Ocean's not to bad either once you get past the fact it's all water..." Sonic sat up, still full of energy and wanting to go back in – the stupid part of his brain daring him to try teaching himself how to swim in hopes it would impress the pink hedgehog... But said pink hedgehog was lying down, in bliss but tired...

Amy just looked up at him, somewhat impressed by the fact he didn't complain once he was actually in the water even once. "You're fearing water less... That's good. You just need to associate it with something nice, something that makes you less afraid."

"I guess learning how to swim would make me look more heroic, but me and water have a complicated relationship..."

Boy did Amy know that. "It's not just about heroics Sonic. It's about facing your fears for your sake."

"Well..." Sonic hesitated. "Wouldn't wanna be a coward if the hoglets get into trouble in water."

"Aww... You were worried about the urchins?"

"A bit."

"That's sweet of you."

"You think we can do this again?"

"You mean you want me to teach you how to swim?"

"I mean in general. When do we ever hang out alone together?"

"Well we are battling Eggman most of the time."

"Well Eggman hasn't been in the picture for a while." Putting his arm around his girl, he squeaked once. "So either he's gone for good or someone who's not me managed to beat him or changed his mind about wanting to turn this island into some amusement park."

"Why DOES he want to build an amusement park anyway? He has skills outside of being evil." And Amy counted them on her fingers "robotics, building, cooking, gaming, teaching, staff management, and sure he could use some hospitality training if he ever decided to open an actual hotel but he doesn't really have a reason to be here and try to build an amusement park all the time."

"Yeah, I think it's just me he hates..." And then he scooted away, scratching his ears. "But thinking about it that way, that just makes things between us more complicated. I mean if Eggman comes back then you're going to be an even bigger target than normal. And then you have to worry about the hoglets... What if everyone gets hurt because of me?"

Despite his instincts nagging at him to show her 'why he was the fastest thing alive', the more he thought about settling down and making it official, the scarier it got...

Amy started putting her shoes and stockings back on. "I can handle myself. I hammer well, I'm tough. Besides, we do this all the time. We might be a little off our game because no one's shown up to ruin things for a while but we can manage."

"Amy you don't get it. Sure some of those schemes are stupid but if I hadn't gotten out of those schemes I might not even be here..."

But the pink hedgehog just hugged her man. "You'll be fine... You believe in yourself and your ability to save people, and I'll believe in you... You just need to trust that other people can help you..."

 **Chapter 7 end**

 **I'll start with the animal trivia and then go into analysis of the pairing and you can credit myself, the boyfriend and Digi Valentine for these findings. Once I get in a more stable place in life, I plan on doing these sorts of fictional analyses myself – not strictly for Sonic stuff, just fiction I like in general. Sonic stuff will definitely be on my list though if only because that darn blue hedgehog just seems to be stalking me throughout life and because I have exposure to it because BOYFRIEND!**

 **Animal trivia for chapter 7:**

 **This is all hedgehog trivia!**

 **You know that pose described in the first paragraph? "the female lies on her stomach, nose in the air, legs spread apart..." - that's a position a female hedgehog has to take so mating isn't so painful... Hedgehogs can't take off their spines, so the female hedgie takes this position because it would be the least painful while the male would mount her and bite her quills in order to not fall off.**

 **The quill biting doesn't just happen strictly for reproduction either, it's also to show dominance. A male hedgehog might bite a female hedgehog even if they're not mating in order to show dominance over her. I'd also assume that if other male hedgehogs were in the picture, it'd be a visual cue to say "this is mah woman, don't bite her quills"**

 **(Though in the Sonic art style, how would you draw Sonic biting Amy's quills/hair without the heads just looking awkward? If you think you can draw that convincingly I would be eager to see your work – maybe even make it the cover for this fic...)**

 **The squeaking in this chapter also has a place. Male hedgehogs will squeak to sound like a hoglet so that a female will start ovulating and want to have a litter of their own... This is one of those behaviors that's cute in animals, it can even be cute in anthro versions of animals like Sonic and friends but that'd be very weird if human males started making baby noises in order to get a woman to ovulate...**

 **Now some analysis stuff regarding the pairing of SonAmy itself!**

 **The benefit of having a partner who's almost as analytical as you are has it's benefits. So his background is that he grew up on Sonic games, the shows, the cringe, etc. One of his favorite pairings is SonAmy. His analysis of the pairing was that while it is KIND OF canon (the constant ship teasing in Boom, the heavily implied love confession in Sonic X, behavior in the games), what are other reasons superheroes don't have permanent partners? It's because often their loved ones will become targets of the villain. Just look at any one Jessica Jones ever works with: Killgrave always ends up effecting them in order to get to Jessica, not stopping at anyone or anything to get her back. Granted Killgrave is an extreme example and Eggman is more of a cartoon villain with honestly no real threat compared to previous iterations of the character, but Killgrave is a great example none the less. Good villains have motivations – strong enough motivations will make everything else lose it's meaning in comparison to their ultimate goal.**

 **So the boyfriend's theory as to why SonAmy would never be made official (we're not counting the comics), would be because Sonic cares about Amy too much and wouldn't want her to be a target of Eggman. My counter argument: Amy's a capable character, she's tough, she's got balanced stats and she has plenty of motivation. Just look at her in Sonic X, past all of her being in love with Sonic she's a total badass. Sonic's just kind of being a dope – a dope with good intentions since aside from Boom most of his iterations are generally nice guys – but still kind of a dope...**

 **That also brings me to another point I'm borrowing from Digi Valentine who's inspired me to do these sorts of analyses thanks to his YouTube series "Who Dat?". In his analysis of Amy Rose he points out that Sonic is the type of hero character who believes strongly in himself and that's what fuels his heroism and Amy's the type of character who believes in YOU. She's bound to get into trouble herself but she's capable enough to find a way out of it and she's well rounded socially as well as physically – often helping characters go through arcs (like Gamma in Sonic Adventure 1 and Silver in Sonic 06)**

 **Special Thanks:**

 **Another special thanks to NeckBreak for contributing even more trivia to the reviews section! Also check out their YouTube channel called "Hedgehog Zone"... I've fallen down the youtube hedgehog rabbit hole (hedge hole?) and I can't get out... I'd love one but they're illegal to own in my state.**

 **And for the millionth time this chapter alone, special thanks to the boyfriend who provided us with the lines for Sonic's instincts.**

 **Next chapter I really wanna snuggle a Shadow plush... but I don't own one...**


	8. Chapter 8

**Since I lack a Shadow to snuggle, I'm going to hug my Silver (which was a birthday gift from the boyfriend). So in previous chapters I did mention that I had no idea what they'd be doing with Shadow's character in Sonic Boom, but – thanks to the review section – I saw the 1 episode of Boom that he's in and I think I know what they're trying to accomplish with him.**

 **Seeing how Boom is more of a sitcom compared to other Sonic cartoons (namely Sonic X and Sonic Sat AM which were both action oriented) and seeing the tone of Boom in general being treated like a joke itself even in the games; Sonic Boom the show is basically just sort of a parody of everything Sonic from it's characters to the fandom to what Sonic Team has actually been doing with the characters for the past few years. Eggman's also acting as more of an audience surrogate – he's probably one of the greatest parts of Boom (and hey, it's nice hearing Mike Pollack's voice). When Shadow comes in the picture the first thing Eggman says about him is that "he's the second most popular character in the entire canon" and "he's so cool and edgy". So it seems like Shadow was just sort of dragged into the show for the purposes of pleasing the fans who love him and also for the sake of a joke – which is disappointing to me personally but ultimately Boom is a different continuity and they haven't switched out Modern Sonic for Boom Sonic entirely... Though I doubt any of the games with the Modern cast would want to do anything with Shadow (and Silver for that matter) ever again...**

 **...**

 **So why spend the opening author's notes going on about an emo hedgehog?**

 **It's because... things are about to get edgy (and hammy as all hell)...**

 **Last time was all romantical corn, this chapter is all evil ham (maybe some corn too), self aware humor and poking fun of Shadow's current lot in his life in Boom... Poor Shadow needs a hug...**

 **...**

 **(EDIT: 12/22/17: If you're reading this, you might notice some nice additions to the chapter thanks in part to mass-editing. Enjoy the fic.)**

Sonic walked Amy back to her place in this deafening silence that both had agreed upon non-verbally. He knew he screwed up. Things were going so well and they could've been happy together, taken things further, maybe had a few "urchins" as Amy called them and settled down to have quiet, humdrum but decent lives...

He cursed himself for screwing everything up. He enjoyed being with Amy. He thought back about how she managed to get him in the water without kicking and screaming, how he must've deafened her after squeaking so loud out of sheer happiness – even if part of that happiness was just because of hormonal changes caused by it being "the rut" with the days and nights being cozy and warm and suitable for breeding.

Amy was upset too, but more at herself than at Sonic. She was a female... She wanted things men didn't really understand or want nearly as much as a woman would. She loved Sonic enough as it is, a hero to her and his extra "cool" or "heroic" behavior didn't matter beyond that... But he'd made a point... Eggman was still a possible threat. Settling down, having "hoglets" as Sonic called them was nice but it might not have been the best idea... Not until Eggman could be taken out for good either through careful reform or...

And then she sensed something was horribly wrong, the door to her house wide open when she knew she closed it on the way out and smelling a scent that didn't belong to her, Sonic or ANY of her friends (not even Eggman or those two robot sidekicks of his).

"Amy, I know for a fact you closed that door."

"I know I did..." Amy ran up to her house, noticing that even her carefully crafted nest had been tampered with, with chunks of it seemingly being ripped apart and thrown out of the door and into the sand. She was FUMING, whipping out her hammer and rushing inside, looking around and scanning the room for anything else that was out of place with Sonic following behind her out of concern as his worst fears were being realized...

No one messed with Amy... He wouldn't allow it...

There was a curtain rod in the living room that fell out of place with the curtains now on the floor, chewed up at the ends. The coffee table that was once buried under grass was surfacing and it was scratched up as though attacked by a wild animal. The pillows weren't even safe, with their stuffing being ripped out and thrown all over the place, even finding tufts of cotton stuffing in the bathtub.

And worst of all the kitchen was not a mess when she left... Nor was there a black hedgehog anywhere NEAR her home let alone in HER kitchen, eating HER food and... OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHAOS, HE GOT INTO HER ROSEWATER!

Needless to say Sonic was just as pissed off but more concerned for Amy more than his own safety. This was the reason he couldn't settle down with her... He was a target which would make her a target... And if they did have hoglets then they'd be targets as long as they lived...

And then there was Shadow – who seemed angry for the sake of being angry and showed no other emotions aside from disappointment, anger or boredum.

Getting defensive Sonic pushed Amy aside...

"This is how you make your big appearance Shadow? You just break into Amy's house out of no where for no reason? Didn't you say you were going to..." And Sonic tried doing the most emo sounding voice he could "'fight on my terms'" and he reverted back to his normal voice "next time you showed up?"

"Sonic, will you move aside?" Amy asked, hammer resting on her shoulder. "I can handle this..."

"I'm not going to move Amy, not until this creep explains himself."

"Pft... Pathetic..." That seemed to be Shadow's favorite word... "You don't have the guts to spread your genes, so why bother trying to protect the woman if you're just going to be a biological dead end anyway?"

"That's a lotta talk for someone who tries wooing women by OH... I don't know... BREAKING AND ENTERING?!"

"Are you really trying to challenge me?"

"As if I'm going to let anyone disrespect MY Amy!"

Of course Amy couldn't help but 'awww' at that statement.

"Face it Sonic: You have no real interest in passing on your genes so you should just step aside and let someone else take over." Shadow walked up to his blue rival, poking his chest. "Move over. You have no place here."

And then before he could even think of another monologue to spout Amy pushed Sonic aside and grabbed the black hedgehog by the tuft of white fur on his chest. "Well..." She said it in a cute tone with a flirtatious smile. "If you insist on fighting so much then I'm going to have to ask you take it out-SIDE!" And she threw him out of the front door.

And Sonic looked at the pink hedgehog in awe...

His animalistic instincts came up again _"Okay, even you have to admit that was hot..."_

And the sane part of his brain agreed. "Definitely hot. Scary... But not in a bad way, more of a sexy way." He involuntarily squeaked.

The instincts mocked him. _"And you think it's just this side of your brain that has a dirty mind..."_

And then he got gently pushed toward the front door with Amy's hammer.

"Hey, why are you kicking me out now?" He asked, now at the front door but not wanting to leave, gloved fingers just barely keeping hold of the door frame which kept him inside the actual house while Shadow lay in the dirt under a tree outside.

"Hurry up and help me either by staying out of the way or helping me kick his butt into next season!" The rage in her eyes was telling him to stay away and just let her take out all of her anger in whatever way she wanted. Getting out of the door way he parked himself on a conveniently placed rock, hands up where she could see them for his own safety. "Okay, I'll just let you do your thing and I'll back you up when it looks like you need help..."

"Good~" She smiled in a sort of cute but disturbing way that genuinely terrified him, making him try to repress the urge to snort or squeak too loudly because she might just want to rip all of his quills out or eat him alive...

Shadow, shaking his head to get back to his senses only smirked. "Not what I expected but this definitely makes the trip worth it. Now you can show him why he's unfit to give you urchins."

"It's ME who get to choose who gives me urchins you FOOL!" She swung at him, only for Shadow to teleport behind her and stroke her quills. But just as Sonic was about to spin-dash into him for getting so handsy Amy socked him in the stomach with the handle of her hammer, sending him back a few inches with his hand on his stomach.

"Heh. You're tough." Shadow said smugly. "That's a desirable trait."

"Seriously, why are you even here? I mean last time you showed up things didn't go well for you." Amy said, wondering herself why Shadow decided to stalk her of all people mating season be damned. "Plus aren't their other hedgehogs you can bother?"

"Not female ones..." Shadow shot a glare at Sonic. "Besides, all I wanted was to have some dinner without the blue one getting in my way."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, really."

"You expected to woo me with dinner while drunk off your ass on MY supply?!"

"Well, not originally... But if you still doubt me check the kitchen." Shadow instructed.

Amy sighed, face palming and just wanting to go back in time to keep enjoying her perfect day with Sonic. "Sonic, you keep an eye on this freak while I look over the damage." And she went inside, hoping she wouldn't need to remodel the entire house after this was all over with.

And once she was gone, Shadow scoffed. "Pathetic hedgehog. You can't even seal the deal."

"That's none of your business. I was having a perfectly normal day with Amy until you decided to show up! Like, are you brainwashed again?"

"Thankfully not. But clearly your instincts been driving you wild." Shadow smirked. "You can barely control yourself. As soon as I showed up you wanted to beat me up and claim the girl as your own, didn't you?"

"Well Amy IS mine! She doesn't belong to you! Amy likes heroes, not emo anti-heroes that are borderline villains! You don't even know what you're supposed to do in this CONTINUITY!"

"That matters not. But my revenge against you wouldn't be perfect without taking Amy away from you." Shadow smirked. "You don't deserve to spread your genes. You're far too afraid to even challenge the thought."

"SHUT UP!" Sonic spin-dashed at Shadow only for him to teleport and crash into the side of Amy's house, causing further damage. But he got up, wiping blood off the side of his mouth with his glove.

"Admit it. You know you're unable to do it..." Shadow walked up to his blue other, grabbing him by his little hipster neck scarf. "You just need to step aside and let someone else who can actually commit do it."

With this Sonic snapped, lunging at Shadow and trying to claw his eyes out only for the bastard to keep teleporting to safety a few feet away. After a few minutes of frustratingly trying to hunt him down he was about ready to give up when he finally paused, obviously preparing some sort of monologue. And before he could let out a single word Sonic lunged at him again, successfully knocking him down and a brawl ensued.

Amy on the other hand was inside the house, eating the steak that Shadow prepared... Turns out the guy was a pretty good cook and he wasn't lying about just wanting to woo her with food. All he needed was a nice steady job, maybe a nice apartment of his own, maybe a few hobbies other than being an anti-hero and he could've been a contender. She watched the brawl outside from the safety of her living room window while munching away at a failed attempt at a romantic dinner.

Shadow and Sonic were beating each other into the sand and dirt with the occasional quill and tuft of fur flying out. They were punching and kicking one another like children fighting over a new toy and whenever it seemed like one was gaining an upper hand, the other would topple them and beat them into the ground all over again fueled only by the desire to 1-up and humiliate each other what with survival of the fittest after all...

Then much to Sonic's dismay Shadow managed to bite his quills, making him scream in pain because the bastard's teeth were sharp.

But despite the pain he managed to let out a taunt – as per his style. "I didn't know you swung that way." And then he got bitten even harder. "You wanna make Sonadow a thing just like the fans, huh?!"

"Shut up." And he smashed Sonic's face into the sand, sitting on his back and biting his quills to cause him as much pain as possible – even managing to rip one out - fully aware that Amy was watching. Though he couldn't tell if she was impressed or not because she was eating something. He spit out the quill and seeing that Sonic was pounding on the sand to indicate he was suffocating he got off and pulled him out, holding him up by one large quill like a lame participation ribbon.

"Had enough? Ready to finally give up?"

But Sonic spit sand out onto Shadow's shoes. "Heroes never give up." He looked up at Shadow with a grin, thinking that Amy could never choose such a rotten hedgehog to give her hoglets and he spin-dashed into him, grabbed him and pummeled him to the ground, standing over him and wanting nothing more than to rip his quills and fur out until he looked more like a naked mole rat than a hedgehog.

"Don't you ever mess with Amy again. I swear I might risk turning into a werewolf if you pull this stunt again!" He said. "Wow, I can't believe the idea of turning into a werewolf just occurred to me..."

"Oh as if that experiment went so well the first time... And I wasn't even in that game!"

He stomped on Shadow's rib cage, only for him to grab his ankle and teleport him onto the roof, crashing through it and even making a crater in her floors which scared Amy – no longer calmly eating and observing. She gave the expected scream in fear and unpleasant surprise.

Now she was mad...

She was mad at both of these hedge-hoes for being so unnecessarily violent.

She wanted to treat them as violently as they treated one another, whipping out her hammer and slamming it's head against her hand while looking at the two of them with a murderous stare.

"Shadow... If you still have the power to reverse time, I suggest you use it to go back to a point before you destroyed my house..." She said coldly looking at the black and red hedgehog. "If not I'm going to stick this hammer up your-!"

 **Chapter 8 end**

 **The only way I could cope with writing this chapter up is by thinking of every YA novel trope when it comes to romance. So in a way I suppose you could say Sonic and Shadow were fighting for Amy's love while also having that unnecessarily heavy tension between two male love interests pining after a Mary Sue YA protagonist. My default when it comes to YA romance nonsense is The Mortal Instruments series – just because I had read the first 2 books for middle school, I still have the 3 book set in my possession that I don't know what to do with. But yeah in that series you have all the romance tropes. You have the love interest featured on the cover who is a tsundere asshole that you know the main character is going to end up with, you have the childhood friend who ends up involved in the super natural and then you have a mysterious character who turns out to be her brother who she ends up in an unknowing incestuous relationship with. It's a very weird series and total fantasy kitchen sink.**

 **But I digress...**

 **Overall, I'm glad I got back into writing fanfiction. It's good discipline to write every day/every other day. And even though this chapter gave me a good chunk of writer's block I've been determined to get through it somehow in order to continue the story. A lot of my fanfic career used to involve abandoning stories due to writers block I didn't announce. I'd like to change that just because I am trying to be more professional when it comes to writing (ironically by starting with fanfic, har har).**

 **Now to explain the pure evil ham levels.**

 **So I know that Shadow isn't supposed to be a villain. I know he's meant to be more of an anti-hero. But his Boom iteration seems to be a parody of the older versions of Shadow and so I think they're trying to make him a villain for the sake of having a villain since Eggman isn't much of a threat. Sonic Boom in general sort of has the tone of being a parody of itself so while I wish they would do more with characters like Shadow and Silver that have A LOT of lost potential, they're just sort of going to become jokes if used more in Boom. So Shadow being played off as a villain was sort of falling in line with this fact that Boom has this tone about itself. And this fanfic is essentially what would happen if I wrote a Sonic Boom episode so it's trying to match the tone of the show. So because of that and the fact that the fanfic revolves around who gets to reproduce, Shadow is presented as a simultanious threat and implied hopeless romantic goof trying to woo a female member of his species with a nice steak dinner.**

 **AND NOW TO THE TRIVIA!**

 **While Shadow and Sonic are trying to kill each other Amy just sort of sits back and watches. That's because female hedgehogs tend to lose their interest in watching two males fight and won't actively participate to try breaking it up. They may not even be interested in either potential mate and just run off without acknowledging them. Granted Amy herself is a strong female character which is why I had her defend herself against Shadow (off of his game because Boom and hormones). She reacts that way at first because she's mad her nest was disturbed – another actual behavior observed in hedgehogs. But then for the remainder she's just sort of watching as things happen and having dinner and a show. So if she seemed like she was side-lined just because, it's because she's just acting in part based on mating habits of real female hedgehogs.**

 **As for the tension between Sonic and Shadow... TO MY SURPRISE hedgehogs are not strictly heterosexual. Studies have shown that hedgehogs are promiscuous with both male and females and often have several different mates in a single season. The reason why I was so surprised was just because I've been subjected to so much cringe from this fandom by the hands of the boyfriend that I was surprised to learn hedgehogs were animals that mated with members of the same sex and it wasn't just a pairing thing for the fandom.**

 **Granted I'm not a shipper of Sonic and Shadow, they look nice together design wise but I see no chemistry there other than a rivalry. So the weird YA novel tension between them is a bit of fanservice for any of you that do ship em, going based on the meta humor that Sonic Boom consistently dishes out and also because it's hilarious to see Sonic (who has a serious ship tease problem with Amy but denies it at every turn) and Shadow (an overall serious and dark character who doesn't seem to show much romantic interest in anyone) just lose their minds over a floofy pink hedgehog. In hindsight it's also funny because Sonadow gets mentioned in bonus material by the cast like in the 2017 Twitter takeover... Dammit Mike Pollock you managed to make me find Sonadow even funnier.**

 **Specific terms:**

" **The Rut" - some breeders and caretakers of hedgehogs will call a specific time frame of the mating season "the rut" which starts around mid May or the beginning of June. It's when the nights are nice and warm.**


	9. Chapter 9

**In case you haven't noticed, this fanfic is a load of corn. I rest my case.**

 **Also the review section for this story has become my crack because you guys just have the best ideas and comments. I'm still new to the Sonic fandom but I already feel so welcomed!**

 **Some of the YA romance tropes continue, though their obviousness may vary. Overall regardless of tropes being parodied, the SonAmy and ShadAmy get cornier and sillier from here.**

 **Also per review-section request and me having yet another character to call a floof – we're getting a little Tails x Zooey on the side. Though as a side-effect of her character not having done much thus far I'm going to write her by improvising a lot.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **(EDIT: 12/22/17: If you're reading this, you might notice some nice additions to the chapter thanks in part to mass-editing. Enjoy the fic.)**

Shadow transported them back in time, going back to the point where Sonic and Amy were walking back to her place only to find the door wide open. This time Shadow was waiting for them at the front door, head resting on the door frame while the smell of steak wafted about the house and even stretched to the outside, greeting Amy as she ran to Shadow and 'booped' him in the face with her hammer, giving him a nice bruise.

"That's what you get for wrecking my house in a previous timeline!" She sighed. "Granted I still don't get why you went through the trouble of breaking and entering to get my attention... But that steak did taste really great last time..." She turned away and blushed slightly, not wanting to endorse his behavior but not being able to deny when food was good.

"Amy, he still broke into your house and damaged the roof! It's your house, kick him out!" Sonic shouted, defensive of (what was in his mind) his woman.

"Well thanks to ass-pull on the part of the writers, I can still manipulate time without a chaos emerald. So your welcome for fixing up the place." Shadow muttered. "Also what'd you use in the rose vodka?"

"Pesticide-free rose petals, water, vodka and lots of love. What else would I use?" Amy asked, putting her hammer away.

"It's surprisingly strong, meaning I'm probably going to end up with two timelines worth of hangovers." Though it did honestly serve him right.

"Well, if you're still devoted to the idea of just having dinner, I guess it would be okay but-."

"HE BROKE INTO YOUR HOUSE!" Sonic kindly repeated.

"With good intentions." Shadow kindly pointed out.

Amy just wanted to hammer them both into dirt and eat dinner by herself but instead – perhaps due to hormones or just being the heart of the group regardless of season - felt the need to settle things diplomatically (with or without a hammer).

"Alright, since neither of you are going to shut up and get along I'm just going to go back inside, eat dinner by myself and then cry myself to sleep at night with a life-size plushie in my arms."

She pushed Shadow aside, strong enough to do it and without much resistance he didn't put up a fight or try stroking her quills without consent, just letting her go inside, shutting the door and presumably eat more steak by herself.

The black hedgehog shook his head. "Well this isn't going well what so ever."

"Well it is YOUR FAULT! You had literally no reason to show up here again."

"I DID. But nothing seems to be going according to plan. The universe is just making a fool out of me! What aspect of my character is that funny?"

"Look I don't know. But you still ruined my chances with Amy."

"And I can say the same to you, you blue waffle."

Sonic shook his head. "Just get off of this island already. I'm sick of looking at you and your emo color-scheme. I mean seriously? Red and black? Quit trying to have so many edges!" He started walking toward town when Shadow teleported in front of him to kick him in the face.

"That's for the emo joke. Being emo isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some people are into that." Shadow smirked. "And you're one to talk about being emo: look at you walking away. You're already giving up and handing Amy over to me? You just want to lose to me, don't you? You're unable to admit you're an inferior being!"

Sonic, just fed up with dealing with this emo hedgehog simply walked away, being taunted as he walked off. For some reason Shadow seemed to think that just sitting around and waiting for Amy to come out would be a good idea...

But Sonic knew her better...

She'd want to be wooed...

Girls liked romance and all that mushy and typically uncool stuff. Amy wasn't much different save for the fact she and Sonic had history together since the Classic era. He used to be so fat back then too...

Meanwhile Tails was at Meh Burger, trying to forget everything he had experienced that day and just trying to eat a meh lunch. As usual the eternally depressed nurtia known as Dave the Intern claimed to be on his break while Tails stood by the counter, waiting for his order to be taken seriously. This island really needed more life to it...

Then he was tapped on the shoulder, jumping in surprise and both tails puffing up like a Halloween cat. It was Zooey...

"Um... Hi." She seemed happy and relatively normal.

But Tails was not his normal self. He was annoyed, he was embarrassed and partially traumatized and just wanted a burger that wasn't even made of real beef. "Um... Hi... Did you need anything?"

"I just noticed you looked upset was all. If you want, I have some extra food so do you wanna eat together?"

"You have no idea how happy I am to here you say that." Of course the dog happily obliged, going to her table and eating the burger and fries she hadn't finished at an animalistic pace.

"You seem upset about something..." Zooey said, sipping a soda and tail swishing about.

"I've just had a stressful day. First Sonic starts acting weird, the Knuckles and Sticks act weird. Then I end up learning about things that I don't even know if I'm ready to really learn. Like I don't know whether or not the information will even stick in my head but I don't know if I wanna know it anyway!" He put some extra ketchup on his half-eaten burger. "You ever get that way?"

"I guess... It's normal to be uncomfortable with things. It's just apart of living. We learn stuff and some of it is weird." She put her drink on the table. "Like last night I read this Fuzzy Puppies fan fiction that went into really weird territory."

Tails paused, looking at Zooey distraught. Not only had he never played Fuzzy Puppies but he wondered what sort of 'weird' she meant.

"Okay, so there's this part of the community in the Fuzzy Puppies fandom that write the fan fics about wanting to breed the puppies to make new puppies. Those in the know call them 'breeders'. I mean, it's _kind_ of cool but at the same time some people take it to weird places. Like you know what I mean? Like a yorkiepoo would be an adorable dog breed but then there are the people who get _REALLY_ into it!" She went on and on about this Fuzzy Puppies game and this fan community surrounding it. On the one hand it disturbed Tails but on the other it didn't sound too far off from his own horrifying discoveries earlier that day.

"I think I know what you mean. That stuff is weird. I'm trying not to think about it that much." Tails ate the rest of his burger, getting ketchup on his muzzle.

"You have ketchup on your face." Zooey grabbed a napkin, pressing it against Tails' muzzle.

"Y-you don't have to. I mean I'm fine. I can take care of myself." Needless to say it did make Tails happy. "So, um... what other games have you been playing lately? Aside from Fuzzy Puppies of course!"

"I've been playing a few RPGs and party games. You?"

"I dabble in games on occasion. But lately I've been working on my plane, computer maintenance... That sort of thing. Lately the hardware is what I'm focusing on more than the software." For a moment Tails thought he saw something royal blue in the distance, but returned his attention back to Zooey when she said how cool it was that he knew so much about technology.

Sonic – who'd been solemnly walking to Meh Burger – was now hiding behind a tree after spotting Tails with Zooey. While he was jealous that someone younger than him – his very protege – with his head still on his shoulders and a bit of common sense when it came to girls he was also proud of the little guy. While he did come to Meh Burger intent on buying a burger just watching Tails and Zooey bond was heart warming enough and he wanted to stay hidden so he wouldn't be noticed. He wouldn't want to ruin his chances...

One day Tails would understand. Today, some other day, some other continuity – he'd get it eventually. But for now he was better off enjoying the more innocent aspects of trying to mate.

But when he thought about it like that, he started feeling pathetic...

Tails – without even trying – already had his act together and while Sonic didn't know much about Zooey, he could see them making a cute pair and mating for life (of course he hadn't told Tails that he researched fox mating habits years ago for fear of freaking the kid out, but looked them up anyway to better help him should he ever need it).

He backed away, speeding off into the woods without Tails even noticing him...

And once he was far enough away from town he slumped over under a tree, feeling stupid and overwhelmed. The only way he managed to beat Shadow last time was because Eggman blinded him with the flash on a camera while taking a selfie... He wasn't strong enough to stop him on his own without Shadow having a handicap...

The only thing he had was that he knew Amy longer. It wouldn't help him in a normal battle but in terms of survival of the fittest... Well... Sometimes even those with weak genes could manage to reproduce when you played the sympathy or friendship cards.

Even if actually going through with such a thing and retiring from battle for however long to play cool-dad to a bunch of hoglets wasn't the best idea, that wasn't what mattered. It was Amy that mattered...

And Shadow wasn't going to take Amy away from him. He wouldn't allow it, hormones aside.

"Alright. Just need to think of what Amy would do or what she would want." He pondered it for a bit before hearing the grass ruffling behind him and fragments of a muffled conversation. "WHO'S THERE?!"

"Oh for the love of..." Sticks popped out of the grass, a burlap sack on her back. "Oh. It's just you. Why aren't you bumping uglies with Amy?"

"Well that's a little forward and nosey..." Sonic muffled, hiding his now red face with his neck scarf. "Look, some other hedgehog got in my way and I'm trying to think of how to gain the upper hand again."

The badger didn't really care. "Whatever, you continue fighting, I need to hide this body." Sticks starting digging into the ground with her bare hands, tail in the air as she dug deeper and deeper to make a bigger hole that would hide the sack.

And then the neck scarf fell... "HIDING A BODY?!" Fearing for his own safety Sonic opened the burlap sack only to find Knuckles passed out inside.

"He got too clingy... Far too attached and crazy. He kept insisting on followin' me places. I told him he was dumber than a sack of potatas... So I clobbered him and put him in a sack of potatas!" She explained in a cheerful tone of voice.

But seeing Knuckle's chest rise and fall indicated he was just knocked out and sleeping it off – thankfully not dead. "What made him act that way? And why did you think trying to murder him and bury him alive was a good idea?!"

"If he keeps following me around he'll only make me easier for the aliens to find... He's a liability! The aliens could brainwash him and have him follow me around would be normal and I'd be off-guard!" Sticks shouted. "But besides that I ain't interested in a creepy echidna who refuses to take no for an answer-."

"WHOA." Sonic assumed the worst, thinking Sticks was making up all this alien mumbo jumbo to cope with something much more awful in nature. "This show has a rating, we need to maintain it."

"No, no, no, not like that. He was just being a moron. He dragged me to Tail's place and didn't put me down. After that a couple kicks to the stomach subdued the beast..." Sticks popped her head out of a freshly dug hole deep enough to the echidna's body. "But I still ain't havin' him follow me around even if he does say he wants to get smarter. I mean it'd be great to have someone who's prepared for taking out the old woman who secretly lives in your house but that takes a special kind of person... He ain't that special OR smart!"

"You still knocked him out cold and you were planning on burying him alive..."

"In my defense: I was an innocent badger girl – a simple sow – just trying to make her life go back to normal and suddenly this total creep insists on following me everywhere after I clearly state that I'm not interested!" She got out of the hole. "Think about my needs! Think about anyone else having to deal with that level of stupidity!"

"Point." Sonic shook his head. "Alright, well I'm not going to let you bury Knuckles alive and whatever grudge you have against him is between the two of you. But I could really use some help..."

"So you need help getting back into Amy's good graces."

"AND I need to get rid of Shadow."

Sticks' eyes widened. "Shadow's back? For real?"

"Yeah... what with the season and all that..." Sonic looked away. "Bit my quills too..."

Sticks whimpered "And you worried about me bein' violated! You know what I mean 'violated'?"

"YES, I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN! That doesn't make the pain go away." Sonic tried to brush his hand over a quill that was no longer there, which pissed him off. "Look, just give me some ideas to work with. Tell me what you think Amy would like!"

Sticks – temporary team leader, designated sex-educator and now relationship guru had to think on this one. "Well, you're obviously crazy for each other but you're chickening out and lettin' Shadsy take the lead. Granted he ain't gettin' anywhere with Amy cuz she's too floaty and concerned about sea urchins to really care."

"I got to second base..."

"YOU BIT HER QUILLS?!"

"Eyup..."

Sticks internally panicked for two completely different reasons. One was because Amy was no longer as floaty as she had been that morning – indicating that holy crow this was actually happening - and the second was because they'd reached second base but somehow no further, meaning she'd be stuck in this endless cycle of shenanigans until who knows when. She shook her head.

"Well first off, congratulations... But second-off, the two of yous need to get it over with already! This insanity has gone on long enough!" She grabbed the hedgehog by the shoulders. "You need to get over this dilemma, get what you gotta do done and get out."

"I can't do anything with another hog in my way."

"Well." Said Knuckles, popping out of the sack and suddenly in between the two with a hand on each of their backs. "Having an obstacle that always gets in your way sounds a little like Eggman to me!"

Sticks stared at him with cold, dead eyes... "Knuckles get back in the bag or-."

Sonic interrupted her murderous thoughts and threats. "Actually what he's saying isn't far off. Egghead's a total fanboy for Shadow! What if one of you gets a hold of Eggman, tell him Shadow is here and that can get him out of Amy's quills?"

"I'm open to trying anything as long as we get this schlock over with." Sticks shot a glare at the audience and especially the writer, wanting to stuff them in the same hole as Knuckles. Then she looked back at Sonic "You're not yourself when you cant bump uglies."

"Again: we have a rating!"

"Fine. We go get Tails and tell him to get Eggman for us-!" Sticks ordered but was rudely interrupted.

"Actually no, don't tell Tails... He's busy..." Sonic intervened. "He's busy with some stuff and needs his privacy. I mean, he told me so cuz we're bros like that ya know! So just leave him alone. We clear?"

"Is Tails doing okay?" Knuckles asked.

"He's perfectly fine. Just leave him alone. And before you ask again – YES – I'm sure." Being a cool big brother figure was mandatory at times like these. "Tails is my bro. I know what's in his best interest."

Knuckles pouted a bit "I thought we were bros."

"It's different. Me and Tails go back. I mean if not for Tails I can't stand on the backs of airplanes looking cool while he does the hard work. Things like that make things between me and Tails run pretty deep. So don't mess with him. Got it?"

Sticks simply stood silent and took a mental note of this change in behavior.

"Alright, while you guys do that I'm going to rack my brain some more on some internal conflict. And make sure you get Eggman to Amy's place immediately!" Then he ran off.

Tails on the other hand was reading fan fiction with Zooey on her laptop, mooching off of the free wi-fi at Meh Burger. She had somehow convinced him to read a few fluff fanfics with her even though he was completely unfamiliar with the fandoms she was apart of. They sat next to each other reading the male and female characters' parts and giggling along the way with their tails intertwined.

Zooey was laughing but trying to hush herself. "The comic relief in this one is so weird... but it kind of works, if you get imaginative with it." Then she read the character's line: "What's your poison?"

Tails then cleared his throat to attempt doing a robotic sounding voice. "NAPALM. PUT IT IN A BARREL AND SHAKE IT WELL."

Zooey found herself covering her mouth to avoid being too loud, finding Tails' robot voices hilarious. Barely managing to stop the laughter she read another line: "I'm a bartender, not an arms dealer."

Again in a robot's voice: "POINT TAKEN. YOU ARE A BAT GIRL WITH TOO MUCH TIME AND NOT ENOUGH WHIT."

The vixen cleared her throat with a cough, reading the bit of narration that followed. Between laughter, rushing through it just to hear Tails read the next line.

"ETHYL. CHILLED. NO ICE." And noticing how she could barely contain herself at impressions Tails read the next line: "the robot's request was closer to rubbing alcohol or disinfectants found in hospitals than at a bar's drink menu.

After a cough or two Zooey took a deep breath and read another line in her attempt at a robot's voice: "I WOULD LIKE TO COMPLAIN TO THE MANAGER ABOUT SERVICE QUALITY!"

Tails got a slight giggle out of it, just enjoying the time they were spending together. He was enjoying himself just taking it easy. Zooey was nice to him. He was nice to her in return. They were just cool like that.

"This is fun but you wanna do anything else?" Tails asked, admittedly a little bored of reading fanfics with Zooey and thinking of going somewhere more private. "You wanna head to my workshop maybe? I mean the internet's better there so maybe we could play some games?"

"Would you be interested in learning how to play Fuzzy Puppies?"

He wasn't. "I'd love to."

And off they went.

 **Chapter 9 end**

 **That Fuzzy Puppies thing was entirely improv on my end. You can interpret it however you want but the way I thought about it was like learning (or attempting to teach yourself) sex-ed through fan fiction or discovering a fetish through fan fiction. I don't think it's far-fetched to say many of us might've been in that boat once...**

 **Also if you're wondering what a yorkiepoo is: it's a mix between a yorkshire terrier and a poodle. For a very brief period of time my little cousins had one and the first day they got her, I picked that ball of floof up and it slept in my room that same evening. She was a very hyper dog and grew super big in a matter of DAYS, not sure if that would be common in the breed or if it was just that one dog's personality and genetics. I'm much more familiar with the chihuahua breed myself. Chihuahuas and other fox/wolf like dogs seem to be a running motif in my life. I will forever miss my own little dog mom – a beautiful and spicy little chihuahua who was my little pal for 13 years.**

 **...**

 **Boy I made this sad... I apologize...**

 **...**

 **Animal trivia:**

 **Now we get some fox mating trivia!**

 **A small fact that got a giggle out of me: male foxes are called dogs while female foxes are called vixens. I just got a giggle out of that because 'vixen' can also be used to describe a sexy (human) woman. I know we call female domesticated dogs 'bitches' already, but 'vixen' is another word that can have an empowering and/or insulting sexual connotation when applied to humans. On the other hand, when you call a human male a "dog" it's used as an insult to say he either gets around a lot or he's just not good long-term relationship material.**

 **IRONIC because: Foxes are also romantic little creatures that are monogamous and mate for life. They'll form pairs and they tend to stay in those pairs and raise pups together. In that respect I see why pairing Tails with Zooey has become a thing, though I'm always going to have a weakness for Tails and Cream (one fox and bunny pairing that predates Zootopia).**

 **Funny trivia:**

 **So the part about Zooey and Tails reading fanfics together was loosely based on when my boyfriend read a fanfic from when he was in middle school to me over Discord voice chat. He read it in his Sonic voice which just made me laugh. The fanfic was called "Give it a Chance" and it's a SonAmy fanfic. He recommended I read it but I haven't touched it since he read it to me. The fanfic that Tails and Zooey are narrating is actually very loosely adapted from a Shadouge fanfic I came across out of a fit of curiosity called "Push and Pull".**


	10. Chapter 10

**Sorry an update took so long, lots of stuff happened IRL, writers block, found a voice actor to help me voice and original story of mine, I went to my first college party cosplaying Shadow for Halloween (and I looked DAMN good). At said party the boyfriend managed to put together a last-minute Sonic costume, I told him he didn't look good enough to be my fake, he told me he'd make me eat those words. And my Silver plushie managed to look depressed the entire night while he was tied onto my waist... I had a weird night. But other than that, real life nonsense just got in the way and I'm trying to get myself to write fanfic and original work both as therapy and to get myself to write anything in general. The boyfriend and I also started Sonic Forces together but I'm not as enthusiastic about it as I should be...**

 **So what's going on in this chapter?**

 **The YA romance tropes continue subtly. This chapter also contains Tails x Zooey, Knuckles x Sticks and ShadAmy – not a pairing I normally ship and they happened accidentally in this fanfic, but past chapter 3 everything turned to improvisation on my part. SO WE'RE ROLLING WITH IT! The challenge for this fanfic was to match up with the random tones in Sonic Boom and it's shifts after all.**

 **Onto chapter 10!**

 **(EDIT: 12/22/17: If you're reading this, you might notice some nice additions to the chapter thanks in part to mass-editing. Enjoy the fic.)**

Tails had taken Zooey to his workshop so she could teach him how to play Fuzzy Puppies but he'd managed to distract her with his inventions, his plane, one thing lead to another and they were napping in the little fort he'd made for himself while he was a quivering dog. Unfortunately for Tails he was the one who actually fell asleep while Zooey stayed half-awake and played with his ears.

"Heh, so floofy~."

"Floof is a concept too..." He snored, speaking in his sleep. "Ish too complicated to..."

Zooey smiled from ear to ear, watching the dog sleep and enjoying the little den in the workshop and how warm it was. If only she'd brought marshmallows and skewers; she knew he had a portable stove he built out of paperclips, bottle caps and recycled soda cans. They could've had a camping trip inside.

"I guess I'll leave Fuzzy Puppies here for you next time we hang out. Right now..." The vixen yawned. "Sleep and floof sound a lot better than Fuzzy Puppies..."

"But floof is too much of a complex concept to..." More snoring. "summarize with mere words..."

"You're cute when you talk in your sleep~" Zooey rubbed behind his ears. "I think I'm going to sleep too. Remind me to call my mom and tell her I'm with a friend." And she started to zone out and eventually fall asleep herself, hand still on top of Tails' head.

Amy in the meantime sat inside and in front of the front door. Shadow insisted on waiting outside and making small talk and while the small talk (and steak) was nice she wasn't at all interested. Snuggling a life-size Sonic doll she put together herself she kept listening to the black hedgehog go on and on about genetics and genetic engineering.

"Shadow, when are you going to go away?" Amy asked. "This is fun and all but it's getting really annoying and I'm not interested."

"Well your little blue boyfriend hasn't come back." He haunted, still outside and enjoying the sun. "Really Amy, how long as it been?"

She sighed, hugging her Sonic doll tighter. "It's been years..."

"It's been years and what has he done?"

"Pft. Nothing much really. But he's busy saving the world. Maybe now isn't really the time ya know?" She did try considering it from his point of view but something still nagged at her in all directions. "I don't wanna talk about it. Just go away!"

"Do you even realize what you're saying?"

"I don't wanna talk about it..."

"Amy, what do you want from Sonic?"

She hugged her doll hard enough for one of the button eyes to pop off. "It's complicated..."

"I understand. You've been wanting things to change for years but things just haven't happened that way." He said. "It's a shame, but it happens. But sometimes you just need to take a step forward and never turn back."

"Why are you helping me? You're just here because you wanna spite him, aren't you? Why are you trying to be nice to me?" Amy asked, leaning her head back against the front door and trying her best not to bang her head despite her frustration.

Shadow just shrugged. "Who knows?" Granted the season did make him think about things differently than normal but Amy was certainly interesting. She could put up a fight, stand up to herself – a sign of her good genes - and best of all: she complimented his cooking. He didn't actually consider it at the time when fighting Sonic but it was during this quiet time when he was trying to talk to Amy as a person and actually try to get her attention that he found himself actually wanting to help her even in some small way.

"Just go away... Besides, I have everything I need. Warm nest, food in the fridge, something to cuddle with..." Then the simple action of her hugging a homemade doll started making her sick. She was clinging to something she couldn't have... She threw it across the house, having it hit the fridge in the kitchen and it stared back at her. "Just leave me alone!"

"I know you're mad but if you let me come in I can help you work through your issues."

"I'll be FINE." She gripped the handle of her hammer. "Maybe I should just go out and smash a few things... I could use a workout."

Shadow smirked. "Sounds perfect. I'll accompany you."

And Amy opened the door, kicking him in the back of the head. "I'm going alone."

Shadow got up, hands lifted up to show he meant the girl no harm. "Then you'll have to fight me. Take out your aggression on something that can give you feedback."

She slammed the door shut. "You're just saying that because you want to mate..."

"I'm saying that because you're smart, strong and you're obviously upset. He teleported behind her. "Go on, fight me!" He teleported away as soon as she saw her trying to swing at him, grabbing her by the wrist and flinging her onto the sand hard enough to make it look and feel like an actual fight but gentle enough to not actually risk injury. "Fight me seriously Amy!"

Amy growled, getting up and swinging at him again, getting flung onto the sand.

Shadow cracked his knuckles. "Take out all your aggression on me. Focus your anger to land a hit on me. You can do it."

She swung at his knees. He side stepped. Throwing her hammer at him he dodged again by stepping to the right and she pounced on top of him, grabbing him by the chest fur and slamming his head down into stone. "Is that good enough for you?"

She looked down at him coldly, grabbing his fur hard enough to rip it out if she so chose to but she didn't.

Shadow simply smirked. "Didn't that make you feel better?"

Amy slammed his head down again. "Don't talk to me like you know what's good for me." And then she got up, retrieving her hammer, dusting it off.

"I'm not letting you deal with Sonic alone."

"Pick a fight with him if that's what you want."

"That's not it. You're angry at him too, aren't you?"

She paused, turning back to the black hedgehog on the ground who shot her a look that she thought was trying to be flirtatious which she returned with a hammer to the stomach which he didn't dodge. "It's not just Sonic I'm angry at..." She sat down. "It's no use. I just don't get how guys work I guess."

Shadow sat himself up, hand on his stomach. "It's a lot more simple than you think. Some men are good at one thing, some men are good at multiple things. Some can't do anything at all."

And somewhere in the distance Knuckles sneezed.

"The point is that there are plenty of other men out there capable of understanding you even when the one who you want to understand you can't." Shadow reached for her hand only for her to withdraw within herself and put her hand to her heart.

"I've been trying so hard. I stopped being clingy, I stopped being a damsel in distress, I learned how to cook. I even gave up tarot cards!"

"Tarot cards? What brought about that hobby?"

"Tarot cards! You know, like fortune telling! I used to do it as a kid! Actually that's how I met Sonic~." As much as Amy didn't want to talk to Shadow in particular she couldn't control the word vomit, as no one had inquired about her hobbies – especially not one as unique as being able to read fortunes using tarot cards.

And oh for the love of Chaos that smile she had when gushing over her hobbies made Shadow unintentionally squeak and had him trying to hold his instincts back. Even his voice managed to crack. "Oh really?"

"Granted that was years ago but yeah, I met Sonic after reading my fortune using tarot cards! I might still have a pack somewhere in my things. Would you be open to getting your fortune told?"

He wasn't. "I guess I could give it a go." And she dragged him back to her house, throwing him into the grass, ignoring him like he wasn't there and then searching her room up and down for a pack of tarot cards (even if the set wasn't complete).

And like Sonic had previously, Shadow lay down in the grass and reveled in how much it smelled like the female hedgehog and detested the fact that Sonic got there first. He flung the grass Sonic had rolled around in aside out of childish spite and made himself comfortable as Amy comedically threw objects out of the door from her bedroom in search of tarot cards.

"I FINALLY FOUND A SET!" She giggled, dusting off a box full of tarot cards that couldn't close correctly and spilling the cards onto the grass next to Shadow. "So what kind of question do you have about your future?"

Shadow wanted to say 'I want to know about my chances with a certain pink hedgehog' but then he wanted to slap himself because such a statement made himself sound like Sonic. "Ask it whatever you want. I wouldn't know what to ask."

Amy smiled even bigger, shuffling her cards. "Alright, I'll ask how things are going to work out for you in general!" And from the deck she drew a card: The Fool in the upright position.

"What's that card mean?"

"The Fool symbolizes new beginnings. In general tarot cards in the upright position indicate a positive reaction while an upside down card symbolizes something negative. So The Fool in the upright position means that you'll have a positive change or new adventure in your life."

"What kind of change will there be?"

Amy drew another card: Lovers in the upright position. "Lovers symbolize love and communication. In the upright position they can also symbolize unions, relationships and alignment in values. So it must have something to do with that."

"Interesting. I see why this is a hobby of yours."

"Aww, thank you~. Now let's see how that change will go for you!" And she pulled The Moon in the upright position. "Aww, this isn't good at all!"

"What's The Moon mean?"

"It's a card that symbolizes anxiety and stress. The Moon is one of those cards in the upright position that has a negative meaning and it's upside down meaning is positive or neutral. So this means that the change coming to you in your future has to do with relationships and communication but it's going to be stressful."

"The cards aren't exactly wrong." Shadow smiled a bit. "You've been experiencing what the cards are describing yourself, are you not?"

"Hey, it's the season. Everyone goes a little nuts in heat." Amy pointed out. "I wonder how everyone else is dealing with it."

"Pay them no mind. Besides, now you have my attention with this whole tarot card thing. You mind teaching me how to read them?"

"I don't have anything on my plate right now... But I uh..." She looked back at the Sonic doll in the kitchen, staring back at her and reminding her of her past mistakes, her failures, the glomping, getting shoved away and scolded and being made fun of for a little fangirl crush she'd had for years. And she threw her hammer at it's head, denting her fridge in the process. "Never mind. I'm available~."

But while Shadow moved in closer to study the deck of cards, Amy got up and went to the kitchen, opening the fridge with the hammer still in it and taking out a glass bottle full of a clear liquid.

"You still had vodka in the fridge?!" Shadow asked, wondering how he didn't smell it when he was under a rose vodka spell that turned him into the world's most domesticated drunk.

"I like it chilled. Any objections?" And out of the cabinet she pulled out a stack of plastic shot glasses. Laying out a few on the counter she sloppily poured herself a few shots, drinking one at the counter and sighing after consuming it. "Do you want some or am I drinking solo?"

"I already have a huge hangover on the way so..." But then again, he already had a huge hangover on the way... "I might just have a shot, just to make sure neither of us do anything stupid."

"Oh~ I could be drinking a bit to allow myself to do something a little-" She hiccuped. "stupid... But on the other hand I just need to forget a little something or someone." She kicked the Sonic plushie in the groin and walked back to Shadow on the grass.

"You sure about that?" Shadow took the bottle from her and hid it in the grass should she become one of those uncontrollable drunks.

She hiccuped again, sighing afterward before laying down on her stomach. "Oh, I'm very sure. NOW LET'S PLAY SOME CARDS!"

While Amy and Shadow were bonding over cards, another unlikely pair was headed toward Tails' workshop while Sonic spent some time alone in the forest. Sticks hated how Knuckles was trailing behind her as though he were watching her every move and she would've loved to clobber him and put him back in the bag but no – the poor badger could never win and she shot the author the angriest look she could muster every now and again.

"I thought Sonic said NOT to disturb Tails." Knuckles said, carrying the burlap sack he was once in on his shoulders.

"Well how else are we gonna get to Eggman? Not that I wanna deal with any more poor writing but NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Apparently I gotta be in the center of alla this!" Sticks wanted to give the author the finger but didn't for fear Sonic would randomly show up and talk about ratings to her again.

"You could get in this bag and I could give you a piggy back ride!" Knuckles opened the bag large enough for her to step inside of it.

"No thank you."

"Aww, but come on, it could be fun and you might get to take a nap!" Knuckles urged her to get inside. "I'm big, I'm strong, my arms are big. I could use a few more leg days but COME ON! We could be like a team! Pleeeeeeease~?"

"Knuckles, seriously... You losin' your brains over not being able to bump uglies too?" She put a hand on her chest. "I am not an echidna! I'm clearly a badger! And if I were a badger of the honey variety you'd be dead cuz honey badgers don't give a-!"

"Please~?"

"You're not gonna give up til I get in that bag are you?"

"NOPE!" He pressed the issue. "Now get in the bag so I can give you a ride and you can take a nap."

At that moment Sticks wanted so badly to become a honey badger but stepped inside the sack anyway. Without even realizing it, Knuckles made the writer want to hug him out of thanks.

He carried her on his back and walked slowly toward Tail's workshop and reveling in the fact he was right: Sticks was tired and really needed that nap after all. Granted her snoring wasn't cute in the slightest and it being right next to his ears was annoying but HEY, HE WAS RIGHT! He'd give himself a tally in chalk on a special motivational chalkboard he had at home for all the times he was correct about something.

Once they'd reached their destination he knocked on the door and peaked inside of the window, looking for Tails and finding him asleep. "Awww, look at the little foxes~!"

Sticks bit his dreads. "What are ya talkin' about?" And the Knuckles pointed at the window. "Oh... That's what happened... No wonder Sonic told us to leave Tails alone. He finally got himself a-."

"They're so cute! Just look at the little puppers!"

"Eh... Well here's hoping they don't make more puppers no time soon."

"He's so lucky to have another one of his kind... I'm kinda jealous. But, it could be cool having more lil foxes runnin' around, doing fox things!"

"Yeah, that ain't gonna happen til' it gets cold so..."

"But wouldn't it be cute?!"

Tails woke up slowly, hearing someone squeeing outside and another person yelling. There was something floofy that weren't his tails underneath him, but instead Zooey. Somehow in his sleep he climbed on top of her and slept in a way where they were forming an X.

"Man, I guess I was tired." He sat up, brushing his tails with his fingers. "Sorry if I hurt you Zooey. If you have a backache you could use my tails as a back-pillow as payback."

"Ish okay... Floof is enough..." Zooey spoke quietly, one eye opening. "You should probably check the door."

"Got it..."

So he opened the door, walking outside and facepalming. "NOW why are you here? Haven't I had enough? I was having a really great day with Zooey!"

"We need to get a hold of Eggman." Sticks said in monotone. "We're going to need a plane."

"You're going to tell Eggman to come here when he's been leaving us alone? Let him stay home!"

"Shadow is back."

"But why?"

"Look, can you just give us a plane since you're not interested in going?"

"Sticks, you don't even have a license to fly." Tails opened the door. "I'm going to spend the rest of my day with Zooey. Don't bother us. Plus, Knuckles used to be able to fly. Use him as a plane!" and he slammed the door shut, got back into his little den with Zooey and left Knuckles to get choked by a very angry badger.

 **Chapter 10 end**

 **Sorry this chapter took so long! Real life was being a butt!**

 **NOW FOR TRIVIA – which there isn't a lot of here.**

 **Echidnas:**

 **We see Knuckles trying to make an echidna train behind Sticks even though she's obviously not an echidna herself.**

 **Foxes:**

 **In contrast to hedgehogs who mate in spring and summer, foxes tend to mate in late winter. During that time female foxes can be seen digging holes to breed – in rural areas this can be in banks, under piles of sticks or even in drystone walls. In urban areas they may hide under sheds and buildings to secure a place to breed. So based on season alone (since the island Sonic Boom is set on seems to be in eternal summer with really weird and cartoony geography) they wouldn't actively be trying to mate. So they're just sort of being cute and sweet to each other just because.**

 **Male foxes after mating will also stay on top of the female for a few minutes afterward – sort of like snuggling but to ensure the survival of the species. There's a variant of it here but the two foxes are sleeping in the shape of an X... This is an example of me not being able to make furry characters too sexual – it's just not my fetish and I view them as animals and floofs first, characters second even though they're anthropomorphic.**

 **Admittedly next chapter starts getting a smidge more porny but in that sort of "I can't write porn" sort of way. Things are implied, words may be said, but I can't write sex scenes for humans or furries...**


	11. Chapter 11

**This chapter may or may not be a little bit porny in an "I can't write porn" kind of way...**

 **It's also gonna get a little bit romantic, a little bit sad, a little bit happy and very corny.**

 **You have been warned of my corn.**

 **I guess this chapter may also prove just how much Sonic stuff I had looked up over the past year or so just because I personally think this is the epitome of all the easter eggs and references sprinkled throughout the fanfic because it's an entire scene's worth of material.**

 **I also took the liberty of going back to precious chapters, editing them a bit, removing some typoes and adding in some extra scenes/stuff I forgot to put in to make up for the trouble. So that's a plus as well as a gift for all of my readers being so cool with this project full of corn.**

 **So enjoy the extra scenes edited into previous chapters and enjoy the rest of the fic. Hopefully I can get back on track with writing in general and with this fic in particular: get it back to being mostly a comedy because it did dip into "what if Sonic Boom wrote a serious episode" territory which wasn't the intention, but hey romantic comedies can be awkward like that. That and my improv sometimes produces either really great or really corny writing from me.**

 **But as usual: on with the corn and me falling deeper into the hedgehole that is fandom**

Sonic inhaled, exhaled then inhaled again. Locating a wild bush of roses – lavender roses no less – was certainly a challenge. He plucked the biggest one he could find, tempted to rip the entire bush out of the ground but resisting due to the fact he didn't want to give Amy the chore of having to plant an entire bush of flowers.

He had come to the idea that call-backs were a sure fire way to get to her heart. Make sweet call-backs to their relationship in past games and continuities. Girls, fans and even fangirls couldn't resist sweet and sentimental call-backs and references to older material. He thought about everything that she'd remember fondly. He already had a lavender rose, he planned on getting a pack of tarot cards in the village if he could manage to find one. What else was there?

He couldn't think straight. He was making things more complicated than they needed to be.

Him constantly denying that he and Amy had any sort of connection was screwing him over too – it had been for years. And now it seemed like Eggman just got bored of fighting with tween animal people and there was a chance he could be out of the picture entirely. Getting a hold of Eggman to get Shadow out of the way was no guarantee, nor was being able to get Shadow out of the way and off the island but he was trying to think positively.

For the love of Chaos he even sloppily converted is house into a nest itself, if only to show he was serious should Amy want even more proof.

He inhaled, exhaled, looked down at the rose he was holding and mumbled to himself "Alright, I got this. Besides, fangirls like call-backs. And Amy likes romance and that sort of mush."

And he sped back to town...

Shadow on the other hand looked down at Amy partially regretting as well as enjoying what had happened. Now she was lying down on the grass with a look of content on her face but he couldn't tell whether it was because of the alcohol or...

"I'm going to get some water. I'm getting you a glass too." Shadow got up and walked to the fridge, seeing the mess she'd made in the kitchen with a Sonic doll decapitated by her hammer – now on the floor with the head laying beside it smushed in in such a way where you'd have to rip open the seams and adjust the stuffing to get it back to it's original shape. He found a pitcher of water, putting it on a vodka-covered counter and searching for a glass that wasn't a shot glass.

Amy on the other hand started buttoning up the bust of her dress only to find a button had snapped off completely. She mumbled to herself about having to fix it and started digging around for a mirror.

Shadow came back with water. "Amy, what are you doing?"

"Looking for a mirror. I don't want my quills looking bruised."

"I'm sorry..." Shadow turned pink himself. "But from where I'm standing you don't look bruised in the slightest. So drink some water and lay off the vodka for the rest of the day." He handed her the glass he got for her and she accepted.

"Thanks." She chugged the whole glass down in 10 seconds. "I say that in a lot of contexts." She giggled, tipping back the glass and hoping to get the last few drops of water but unable to get them.

"Maybe it wasn't right of me... I was tipsy, you were in a mood."

"It's not like I was being held against my will or you forced me to do anything so I think we're even. Besides, I realized something today."

"Which is?"

"I need to get over Sonic. I had to just accept the fact that maybe now isn't the time. It may never end up being the right time. So it's best if I got over it."

Shadow shrugged. "Makes sense."

"I really appreciate today. Helps clear my head ya know?" Amy smiled in content. "I'm gonna go get some more water."

"Oh, allow me. I owe you one." Shadow took her glass and went back to the kitchen and leaving Amy alone, lying down on her stomach on a mound of grass and getting a look at her stockings – one high on her thigh and the other having fallen down to her knee with her shoes having been thrown toward the front door. He blushed a bit but still managed to stay civilized.

"Ya know this is easier than I thought. Getting blue in the face over blue balls wasn't doing me any favors anyway." She stretched out, scratching behind one of her ears. "I'll find other ways to be happy. I'm sure of it."

Shadow still felt icky about what had happened if only because he was both a rebound and also one of her exploits while she was slightly drunk in an attempt to forget Sonic. And damn that blue hedgehog to hell for torturing Amy so much.

While pouring her water he thought about settling down for real – not just to spite Sonic. Could've been nice. But he didn't want to overstay his welcome or overstep his boundaries. Of course if he did stay in the picture that could hurt Sonic more but that didn't really matter. Amy was just a girl who got stunted in an attempt at a relationship and Shadow could've been little more than a rebound to her.

Amy looked back at him. "You okay Shadow?"

"Yeah. Sorry, I was just going to ask where you kept the paper towels so I could clean up the mess."

"Cabinet."

"Thanks."

Amy watched him dig through the cabinet and got up. She felt good about herself for the moment. She decided she wanted to get over Sonic completely because it wasn't helping her what so ever. Walking over to the front door she retrieved her shoes – which were tossed in that direction in the middle of the action. Foot against the wall she put her shoes back on and rolled up her lavender stockings.

And then she saw a face look at her in her window, backing away.

"Ugh... What is it now?" She opened the door, finding Sonic on her front door step.

"Hey Ames. How-?" And then Sonic smelled an awful mix of sweat, pheromones and alcohol, dropping the rose he picked for her instantly. "Amy... Why do you...?"

Amy pulled her dress down, embarrassed. "It's none of your business Sonic! Why are you here?"

"I thought we were having a good day before we got interrupted by edgelord over there!" Sonic motioned toward Shadow in the kitchen. He was flustered not just because he got a quick flash of her nethers but also because Shadow somehow managed to beat him to it. "How did it happen?"

"It's none of your business! Why did you even come here?!"

"I wanted to make up with you but it looks like you've already moved on!"

"Move on from what? We didn't have anything... It's about time I accept that." Amy pouted, turning away and about ready to close the door. "I'm trying to work on myself right now so-."

"So, you're going to open up and let me tell you how I feel dammit!" He held the door open where it was, prompting Shadow to shoot him a look from the kitchen. "Quit trying to act like you own the place edgelord! You're the one who caused this mess!"

"Sonic you're acting ridiculous. We didn't have anything because you never wanted anything!" She attempted to close the door but he held it open. "Sonic, there's a black hedgehog right behind me giving you the death glare, you really wanna try breaking into my house or prevent me from closing my own door?"

"Alright, hear me out: I just want to talk to you so..." He sighed, feeling red in the face. "Look Ames, I've thought long and hard about a lot of things."

"So have I."

"I can't explain it with the edgelord giving me the death glare, come outside?"

Shadow looked almost like he was smiling, which looked unusual. "Actually I need some air." and out the front door he walked, arms crossed and looking content with himself. On the way out he got the death glare from the blue one always getting in his way but he ignored it, simply smirking and muttering something under his breath that Sonic barely made out as 'don't screw it up'.

Amy just looked at the open doorway, sighing and feeling alone. "Terrific..."

And then the door was slammed shut, an anxiety-ridden blue hedgehog having gotten in and now blocking the exit. "You could say that again." Then he started begging: "So you wanna go back to the beach? Meh Burger? Anything? I wanted to talk to you. I just wanted things to go back to normal. I had a lot of fun with you today and..." He hid the rose behind his back.

"And what?" Amy looked back at him with a sour expression. "Look, I've come to the realization that we're good friends but we can't work out as more than that. I've been bothering you for years and it probably hasn't been fun for you so I'm ending it."

"You're ending it after a day?"

"I'm ending it after years of not realizing how stupid I was!"

"Amy, you're not stupid. You have feelings! I don't always say it but I care about them..." He meant it. Even though he didn't always want to get involved nor did he understand absolutely everything she was thinking he did want her to be happy.

But she just sighed. "You'll make it easier for the both of us if you just go. We can still be friendly but right now I don't want to think about anything more than that..." She walked to the kitchen, depressed and desperately wanting to clean up the remains of that awful doll before the cotton stuffing could soak up any liquids alcoholic or otherwise.

But she was followed and her creation was met with awkward utterances trying to form a sentence to form a reaction. "Wow... That's me..." A cold sweat made Sonic turn even bluer than he normally was. "I... I didn't know you owned such a thing."

"I made it because I was naive and stupid." Amy said in a monotone voice as she robotically picked up pieces of cotton and fabric. "I understand if you're creeped out by it. I am too..."

"No... I mean it's creepy looking and it's the face that's haunt me whenever I pass by a sewer but I can tell you put a lot of love into making it. That probably wasn't easy."

"It wasn't..." She stopped cleaning up, only getting angry with herself for letting this damn blue hedgehog in her house without a fight. "Why are you still here?"

"I wanna talk to you obviously! I needed to set things right."

"Pft. I thought you didn't like talking about your feelings..." She smirked a bit. Despite the irony of it all she sort of enjoyed their sudden role reversal, maybe in a twisted way he would get it.

And on his end: boy was he...

Even though he prepared himself for this he was hesitating, palms sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy. Sonic felt confused and angry, face red and the rose's stem about to snap. And now the opening was here, time to tell her how he actually felt and he couldn't spit it out. He was frozen in place while every part of him felt like it was burning.

"I... I-I don't know how to word it alright?! I've never been good at this sort of thing!" He shouted in his defense. "Feelings have always been your thing, not mine. My thing was always about going fast!"

"You've never been good at explaining things." She shook her head, eyes closed. Knowing things weren't going to change she got up, still avoiding looking at him and thinking of all of her regrets as she looked at the floor. "What's your point?"

"The point..." He breathed in, feeling even stiffer than normal with not even the animalistic part of his brain to save him with some perverted or comedic one liner.

"Yes... The point. It's missing."

He breathed in, out, in again. "Um..." Oh for the love of... All he wanted to say was 'I love you Amy Rose' but words were becoming impossible to form so he stood there awkwardly hiding a single rose about to be torn to shreds behind his back, thorns digging into his gloves.

Amy facepalmed. "I'm going out. You should go home."

"Oh, well on the subject of my place..."

"I'm not going home with you."

"Well... At least come outside with me and don't run off? I mean..." He motioned toward a window. "There's a nice sunset out there. Can I watch it with you?"

"Why?"

"Because it's something nice I want to do with you. And I have something in mind."

"Like what?" She was getting annoyed. "Just tell me what you're trying to do already!"

He sighed. "Alright, you're gonna have to go along with the set up. It's a little weird, but it does fit." He picked her up and ran out of the door, setting her down a few feet away from her doorstep.

Then he ran back to her door, hands to his mouth. "OKAY SO FOR THIS SCENE: YOU WERE RUNNING HOME! YOU'RE EXHAUSTED! YOU THOUGHT I WAS DEAD FOR SIX MONTHS AND SUDDENLY I'M HERE AGAIN! AAAAAAAAAAAAND SCENE!" He clapped his hands, indicating the scene started.

On the one hand Amy found it stupid but she got somewhat of a laugh out of it, bringing a genuine smile to her face that turned into an awkward laugh. "Y-You're kidding right?"

He yelled after clapping his hands again. "Are you saying that in or out of character?"

"No, I mean the whole thing... You're kidding right?" There was a slight twitch in her smile. "You're actually doing this?"

"I mean, don't people like call-backs and references to older material?" He meant it.

His reasoning was that although it was corny and it was more symbolic than anything he still wanted to impress her and make her smile. He didn't care about hormones or seasons or his instincts telling him to breed – all he really wanted was Amy to be his friend again. Maybe something more should things work out, but more importantly he needed to win her back as a friend again.

Though not intentional Amy fell to her knees in the sand. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She started doing both... "You're not actually serious. When are you ever serious?"

Sonic just stood silently smiling, hiding something behind his back.

"This is all messed up... Just when I was planning on getting over my stupid obsession with you, you pull stuff like this... You're such an idiot!"

He just kept standing there doing nothing.

"I thought long and hard about it and thought I was going to get over you... But here we are again. You're going to try to convince me everything's okay when it isn't... I just don't get you. It took me forever to realize we can't be together and then you pull something like this!"

She was legitimately breaking down. It was confusing, it was stupid and she just wanted to smash his brains and quills out with her hammer but she didn't really have the energy to do so. She punched the ground, causing him to move for once rather than just standing there like an idiot.

He looked awkward as if trying to contain laughter, squeaking or a mix of both as he got down on one knee in front of her.

"You're a real moron you know that... This isn't going to last. Things will just reset and go back to normal once this is all over! You're going to go right back to being a jerk again."

Again he was silent, trying to contain something by not speaking but close to spilling the beans.

She rolled her eyes. "Just..." She inhaled. "Just tell me you love me and that you're not going to leave me, you idiot."

"Could've done without the 'idiot' part but..." He squeaked, giving her a rose was was a little worn after so much drama, abuse and poor attempts at a romantic comedy. "Um... I don't really care about biology. I mean if I can break the sound barrier I can tell my instincts to shut up and settle down and-."

"Simple English, Sonic."

He inhaled, shoving that flower in her hand and grabbing her by the shoulders. "I'm an idiot but: I love you."

"Heh... You friggin' nerd."

"Why am I nerd?" His face was red.

"You and your reliance on call-backs to when you were good."

"Hey, I'm still good. I'm just going through somewhat of a pha-." Before he could say he was going through a phase and how his 'boom' phase was much better than his werewolf or 'werehog' phase in comparison but then he was tackled in the sand, Amy sitting on top of his stomach. "Um, isn't this supposed to be the other way around?"

"Shut up you moron." She bit one of his quills, getting multiple squeaks out of him.

"Okay this is definitely supposed to be the other way around!"

She merely snickered in response, biting his ear.

"AND SERIOUSLY, RIGHT HERE? RIGHT NOW?"

"If you have an issue about doing it in the sand we can take it inside."

He squeaked uncontrollably. "Well-." He squeaked. "I mean-!"

"Yeah? Keep going." Her ovaries were screaming. Her own instincts were having an argument with the more rational parts of her brain, with her instincts telling her that she could totally mate again and that she was a powerful woman who could do anything – and anyone – she wanted without shame while the rational part of her brain just thought about the urchins she could possibly conceive, instincts saying that babies didn't really matter right now.

"Well... I thought I was supposed to be the one-."

"Well~ I guess I just thought I'd wanna make the most of my two minutes~."

Sonic just lay there overwhelmed as his instincts told him to take charge while the rational side of his brain wanted to see where this was all going. "Two minutes huh?"

"Well however long it lasts~ I mean if you're the 'fastest thing alive' I hope it isn't over in a few seconds. I mean I'm hoping those rumors aren't true~."

"Hah! Rumors, what rumors?! It's not like I've mated with anyone else and just cuz I'm the fastest thing alive doesn't mean it's gonna be over in less than two minutes!"

She grabbed his scarf with her teeth, tying it around her neck. "I guess we'll see about that~"

And then he and his instincts agreed on one thing: _"Screw it, this might be the only chance we get and then we can piss off Shadow!"_

 **Chapter 11 end**

 **I am a corny human being...**

 **Honestly as far as love confessions or implied love confessions go in fiction, I actually really like the one from Sonic X. It just works. It could work in any other franchise, but in the context of how it was used in this show really works and it's very touching. It's very sweet in either the Japanese or English dub despite changes 4Kids made to the dub (it honestly wasn't the worst of censorships on their end and the scene still works). From what I've read there are several differences in localization: in the French dub of the show, Sonic out right says "I love you Amy Rose" but that's absent from the English Dub (which just has him say that he'll never leave her) and the Japanese Dub (which has him speaking, but there's no audible dialogue which just implies he's saying either an 'I love you' or something else). The other things that changed based on dub involves what Amy demands of Sonic. In the Japanese dub she says "Just tell me you love me already" in the English dub she says "Don't you ever leave me again". Based on the Japanese dub, this was intended to be a love confession but the English dub left this a bit more on the subtle side. But once again, it wasn't the worst of changes 4Kids made the localize the show in America. As a confession scene goes it's still pretty strong and it remained _mostly_ loyal to the original dub other than "Don't you ever leave me again" vs. "Just tell me that you love me".**

 **I don't know what was used for Amy in the French dub, nor did I find anything anywhere regarding what she said, most of the emphasis there was on Sonic perhaps because of the straight up "I love you" that made SonAmy canon in the French dub which probably made the shippers lose their minds and collectively 'awww'**

 **For the extra observant you also might've noticed some odd parallels or changes like instead of the confession taking place during a sunrise, it takes place during a sunset. And in the original Japanese dub Amy's talking about how she decided to wait for Sonic forever, but here she's talking about deciding to get over him or a break up, etc. I think my favorite case of contrast is how the scene ends for obvious reasons (COMEDY EVERYBODY!) Once again, my improv style of writing proves to be some of my corniest and awkward but sometimes most amazing and clever writing. Which one it is is entirely up to the reader.**

 **I mentioned it in Chapter 7 (the other corny as hell chapter in this fic) that in the scene he gives her a lavender rose (some say it's white, but some also argue it's purple, I see a bit of both based on how the scene is lit). Roses in the language of flowers symbolize romance and passion. While white roses symbolize a pure love, lavender ones in particular symbolize a secret love which fits Sonic a bit better and adds more power to the scene over all which was why lavender roses were also a thing here. That's just an analysis from a crazy analytical writer type like myself who works on a thousand stories at once. Characters are paramount in my work, so pondering these types of scenes and thinking of ways to make them even more powerful is something I enjoy and like talking about.**

 **Onto the trivia which made this chapter comical for me:**

 **This chapter's trivia will make you think a bit.**

 **So there's this common headcanon that since Sonic is "the fastest thing alive", that in a sexual scenario he's going to get it over with as fast as possible or he'd suffer from premature ejaculation. Actual hedgehogs only mate for about one to two minutes and then it's done – often they'll just go their separate ways afterward. So if you wanna get extra corny and a bit scientific about it: if you want a fanfic similar to this (in which you take actual animal behavior and apply it to anthropomorphic animal characters), to give Sonic something like premature ejaculation: that would mean he couldn't last more than a minute or two, which is the average range for hedgehogs.**

 **Another weird hedgehog fact that translates funny to Sonic's design in particular: a male hedgehog's penis looks like a belly button (that's the only way to distinguish a male from a female in reality). Sonic is the only character who doesn't have fur on his chest – he has a fleshy belly. So if you wanna get funny about it: based on his character design, he's walking around with his junk exposed all the time.**

 **Next chapter: laughs, implied mating, sex jokes, couple humor and the occasional Avenue Q joke**


	12. Chapter 12

**Shout out to Serkeru in the review section for their review of chapter 11 which made me go back to see if I made a typo by accidentally calling Sonic 'Sonica'. Turns out I didn't, but that comment still made me laugh as I have a Sim by that name who was basically a female Sonic-inspired Sim I made one night as a joke (she was my Elise Sim's best friend). I made them for an Amazon Challenge and you could very well find the sim on the Sims 3 exchange under the name 'Sonica Stark' if it's still available (The Sims 3 exchange sometimes randomly deletes certain things).**

 **As for the Elise sim I uploaded the hair color I used for her sim on the exchange and posted screenshots of her to DeviantArt. She's quite a pretty sim (not an exact recreation, but as close as I could get to her official design using base game and store content).**

 **So to recap: first few chapters we had comedy and corny romance, middle chapters we had a bit more focus on cuteness, romance and a splash of drama... Everything after this point is just pure shenanigans. We have our main pairing (SonAmy) together. Amy even got some on the side. We have our B pairing (Knuckles & Sticks) suffering and we have our C pairing (Tails & Zooey which happened accidentally thanks to the review section) being cute off-screen probably canoodling. Now what?**

 **Tip: as a writer, remember that stories don't end with the romance happening. You can still have a story and interesting things happen after the couple gets together. Don't ever think your story automatically ends once your main pairing gets together (or even if the B pairing gets together, they can still be characters and have good arcs while your main characters are still having adventures regardless of relationship status).**

 **And that's how we got here.**

 **On with the comedy and the closest I'll ever get to writing Sonic porn:**

Sticks, infuriated with her life (never mind the day or the fic she was written into) somehow managed to fight Knuckles into the dirt and in the process they ended up in the beach, where she was dumping sand on the echidna's back. She had pummeled him into the sand and while he managed to defend himself for quite some time he seemed to give up, just taking the beating. Odd, but badger needed vengeance and a way to vent so she took it.

"You know for the tough guy of the group, you didn't put up much of a fight." Sticks knelt down next to Knuckle's head, his back and legs covered in a mountain of sand. She poked his nose. "I mean I know we're all crazy and out of character, but you even more so."

Knuckles pouted. "Well I thought that if I'm gonna go extinct I'd wanna do it with some semblance of dignity, but I guess I'm not going to get that..." He dug his face into the sand. "Ya know it really sucks being the last of your kind. I mean I have all these friends but I'm still lonely! And you've been mean to me all day long! What grudge do you have against me?!"

"I can't say I have a grudge against you personally. I have a grudge toward the supposedly comedic situations we get put in! There's a difference Knux." She scratched his head out of pity. "I'm just angry at life, the writer, so on. I ain't mad at you – not that much anyway."

With his head still in the sand, he asked: "You mean it?"

"I mean it ya big lug." She continued scratching his head and combed through his dreads. "Actually I just realized something! Can ya hear that?"

Knuckles lifted his head, sitting himself up and a mountain of sand piling behind him as he arranged himself crossed-legged on the beach. "Hear what?"

"Silence~! Ain't it terrific?! This must mean the fan fic is over!" Sticks sighed in relief. "Still, I apologize for being a kook this entire story so maybe we can kiss and make up? Maybe you can tell me more about those emeralds you wanted to get?"

"Yeah, I mean I can tell you a lot about gemology! It's a hobby of mine. Though it's a hobby that takes up a lot of time. I mean I could be using that time to get in more leg days but gems are cool!"

"Good to see you in the spirit." The badger patted him on the back. "And don't worry so much about your legs. That's just the fans trying to wear ya down. You look fine."

The echidna smiled from ear to ear. "Wait, so now that the fan fic is over, what happens now? I mean the writer isn't just gonna let it randomly end are they?"

"How would I know? But forget about the writer. The fan fic is finally over! I say we celebrate by getting a huge fish from the ocean, roastin' it on the beach with a bonfire and mining for emeralds!"

And before Knuckles could pick her up and hug her again the sound of squeaking could be heard, the tops of the palm trees in the distance shaking with birds flying off into the sunset and the occasional coconut breaking itself by landing on a rock.

"Um, Sticks?"

"Yeah, Knux?"

"Is that...?"

"Eyup..." Sticks scratched her ears. "Welp. At least they finally got it over with. Rather triumphant way to end this charade huh?" Thanks to comedic timing the squeaking only got louder.

"Should we say anything? I mean they are _really_ loud." Knuckles played with one of his dreads uncomfortably, pink in the face and trying not to look at Sticks. "And the sun's setting too. You'd think they'd call it a night but-."

"It's best not to think about it." Sticks found herself more uncomfortable than she thought she'd be considering the fact that not only did she have direct correspondence with the low life that decided to write this 'adventure' and so had knowledge of other species' mating habits, but also due the the sheer volume of the event in progress. "Like really Knux, if it makes you uncomfortable don't think about it."

But as uncomfortable as the echinda was there was also an underlying feeling of sadness. "Well, it's awkward and I'm never gonna go near those palm trees again but now I'm just... bleh..."

"Feelin' pressure huh?"

"Yeah... Being the last of my kind and all." Again, he avoided looking at the badger. "And I'm just weird. I mean they've been at it for years but like – wow – it's actually happening!"

"Years?! Really?! And they never did it once?!"

"Well, yeah. But it was one sided forever. Guess that period is over."

"Was that back when you were able to fly?"

"Eyup! Honestly I forgot how to."

"How does an echidna fly?"

"Well ya see all you need is a little-!" comedically timed squeaking and moaning cut him off, causing him to turn red. "YOU KNOW THAT SOUND IS REALLY DISTRACTING! IT DOESN'T HELP THE PAIN AT ALL!"

"Well faith, trust and pixie dust ain't gonna help ya fly OR fix the noise problem." Sticks just looked over at the trees as the sun set and night fell upon the island, the awkward echidna playing with his dreads like a teenage girl on a first date. "Should we call anyone?"

"Who would we call?"

"Definitely not Tails."

"Yeah. I think he's probably gonna have his communicator turned off the rest of the night." Knuckles took a step closer to Sticks, uncomfortable with her presence but also the fact that his best friends were mating off in the distance and wanted the whole world to know about it. "Okay, I know I'm supposed to be the big tough guy of the group but I guess I'm a chicken after all."

Sticks growled, fist to the sky. "I swear I'm gonna climb over that fourth wall and make sure all this ends right this in-!"

Screaming in the distance seemed to confirm that the story was indeed not over and the two hedgehogs were in no way interested in being done at this point in time.

Knuckles hid behind Sticks like a living shield. "Sticks I know we've had issues with me picking you up and man-handling you all day, but can we go?! I don't care if we go toward the noise or away from it! The inactivity is driving me insane!"

"Then we go toward the noise and figure out what the heck is goin' on! I mean it should've been over before we even came here! What's the meaning of this crap?!" Sticks started walking toward the noise with a furious gait, a nervous echidna clinging to her hips like a frightened puggle* as he trailed behind her and made rows in the sand. For once she didn't kick him in the head, simply trying to walk to the noise despite the extra weight slowing her down.

…

Looking down at the neck scarf she put around her neck, Amy giggled to herself. Today was certainly weird, but it seems to have been working out if oddly. She pulls her stockings back up, combed out her quills with her fingers before getting a surprise bite which made her yelp. Sonic hugged her from behind, hands around her waist and squeaking in a hushed tone.

"You doing okay?" She asked.

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you?" He asked in response.

She giggled. "I mean, it took longer than expected but I'm not disappointed. And overall stamina certainly makes up for a lot of things."

He bit her, getting another yelp out of her. "Oh is that so?" His instincts told him to ask if he was better than Shadow but the sensible part of his brain was fully functional and refused to ask such a thing.

She nodded. "Well that and a few other things~. Frankly I'm surprised we've been here as long as we have." She bent cover and stretched, tail in the air for a few seconds before flopping onto the ground in content and sighing after the stretch.

"Heh... You tryin' to tell me something with that stretch?"

"Possibly~ But now I just wanna hide under some bed sheets and eat roaches and ice cream."

"I-I mean I can get you roaches and ice cream whenever-!"

"Actually roaches and ice cream sound really good. What about drunken slugs?"

"I mean I can get you whatever you want but you're avoiding me..."

Sitting up and pointing to the neck scarf, Amy smirked with a mischievous look in her eyes. "Oh, I think I've given you a lot of attention. You wanna continue at my place?"

"YES! OF COURSE! Well, if you want that is."

"Good~!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him close enough to bite one of his ears. "And this time I'm going to be the one doing the-."

A panicked echidna cut her off. "IT'S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT! TURN BACK!"

"Shut up, Knux." Sticks turned to the echidna before looking at the pair of hedgehogs with a look of disgust. "I thought the fic was over and here you two lovebirds are, doin' it outdoors! And you people call ME feral and uncivilized!"

Amy rolled her eyes. "Sticks, this is none of your business."

Sonic got up, standing in front of (what could officially be called) his woman defensively. "We were just leaving. If us being an item is such a big deal then you don't have to get involved."

"That don't change the fact you people are being loud as the hell you want!" Sticks bore her teeth. "Not every other nocturnal animal wants to hear that nonsense!"

Sonic shrugged, smirking and giving her a smug look which made both Sticks and the writer cringe a bit. "Well heh, I mean you don't have to listen to it but~." He put a hand around Amy's waist when he saw her stand up, pulling her in and having her nuzzle up against him. "I mean I certainly have no intention of stopping any time soon."

"And neither do I~." Amy chimed in, looking far too casual about getting caught mating in public by her best female friend on the island and a long-time friend who looked like he was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"And why not?!" Sticks asked.

"Well, we have several games and animations worth of time to make up for. I mean~." She clung to the blue hedgehog's arm like it was Sonic CD. "Since we can actually be together and now that we have all the formalities, confessions and acknowledging each others' flaws and mistakes out of the way~."

"Heh."

"Hehe~."

"Well yeah, we have lots of lost time to make up for! And me and Ames are finally cool and on the same page~." He snorted a bit. "Yeah, we just decided to say screw it all and give it an actual go! This is just the two of us celebrating US. You know, SonAmy actually becoming a thing and not just something we throw around and make fun of!"

"And you know~ With the season and all~. It's only natural. I really don't see why you're getting so worked up about it Sticks. Actually I thought you'd be in support of it since you were helping me decorate for the urchins earlier!"

The two of them were just disgusting, causing Sticks to put her fingers between her eyes and growl a bit. This cutesy couple crap wasn't her thing! It was extremely out of character and it was bringing a certain echidna to the brink of tears and no doubt displacing the badger's hip bones. "So what the two of yous are sayin' is that: you're not interested in stoppin', you don't plan on stoppin' any time soon, AND you're being jerks about it!"

Both of them nodded, speaking at the same time.

"Yeah, pretty much. Any other questions?" said Amy.

"Well, I mean I don't think I'm being a jerk about it. I worked damn hard for this happy ending if ya know what I mean, heh." said Sonic.

The badger sighed. "Look: normally I wouldn't give a crap about who or what you do off-screen but this is getting really long, dragged-out and annoying! You honestly think I wanted to be here?!"

"If you don't wanna be here, then why are you here? Just go! Me and the misses-." Sonic felt a finger go down his spine while a mischievous look took over Amy's face. "Heh... Well, point is: me and the misses got some work to do!"

"Mhm~. Lots of work to do~. I'm sure you'll understand."

"Well my understanding of it is that you're being jerks tryin' to make rule 34 where ever you feel like it. Worst of all: you're rubbin' it in all of our noses!" Sticks sighed.

Knuckles finally stood up, getting out from Stick's shadow. "Y-Yeah! You know some people don't wanna listen to that! I thought we were bros man!"

Sonic hesitated. "Well, I mean we're bros but-."

"Isn't there some saying about bros before designated love interests of the same species?"

"Well, when I hear someone tell me something like that I'll let you know. But come on man! You should be happy for me!" The blue hedgehog walked up to his echidna friend, hands on his huge arms. "I mean, I'm getting my life together! We're still gonna be friends of course. I'll just have the bonus of having Ames all to myself. We're gonna be the cool battle couple that everyone wants to be! The one that everyone's been wanting to see for years!"

"Sonic, you're really missing the point." Knuckles pouted. "And to think people say I'm thick-headed."

"Look whatever, I'm gonna take Mrs. Hedgehog over here-." Sonic rushed back to Amy, hand around her waist. "We're gonna go back to her place, eat ice cream, watch TV and-."

"Chill. Yeah, we're just gonna chill all night while watching TV." Amy cut him off, grabbing him by the hand and speed-walking back to her house, opening the door, threw the male of her species inside the house and locking the two of them inside after waving goodbye to a very angry and confused badger and an echidna who was feeling rather dissed by the world as a whole.

Sticks sighed. "Well... I thought it was gonna be over when they bumped uglies but it looks like that's just encouraged them to keep going and we ain't gonna hear the end of it any time soon." She looked up at Knuckles. "You gonna be okay big guy?"

"No." He pouted. "Let's just go before the squeaking starts. You think I can hide out at your place to cope with the fact that I'm a chicken and that all of my friends are leaving me to pair off with life-long mates?"

Sticks rolled her eyes but none the less patted him on the back. "We get a fish, we get some fire wood and then we go back to my place to party until dawn and we can crash on a pile of shiny emeralds."

Needless to say, he was game and never left Sticks' shadow the entire way back to her burrow despite the comedically sized salmon on his shoulders.

"So um... Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?" the echidna asked. "I mean you were beating me up all day and now you're taking pity on me and treating me like a person... It's weird."

Sticks opened the door. "We're setting up the fire outside by the way."

"Well yeah, your house is a fire hazard on the inside and violates a ton of fire codes. But answer my question!" He noticed Sitcks was busy digging around for supplies inside for her to hear, but once she came out with a bundle of fire wood and skewers he asked her again. "So yeah, I was wondering why you were being so nice to me."

She dropped the wood. "Well it's apparent that you and I are the only ones not affected by this slash fic bull-."

"Shenanigans."

"Whatever... Point is, they already did it once, I'm guessing they're doing it twice – who knows how long they're gonna get at it! But I want this to all be over so I can get back to my normal routine of being paranoid and preparing the inevitable disasters that'll haunt my nightmares!"

"So... Does that mean I have a shot?"

"Shot at what?" Sticks growled. "You still on about being the last of your kind?"

"We echidnas are very shy, confused and vulnerable animals, I'll have you know!" Knuckles shouted in his defense.

Sticks facepalmed. "Well even if we did happen, ain't we out of season?"

Knuckles pulled a pair of reading glasses out of hammerspace. "Well considering we have the social intelligence of another species, would that not imply that we can act outside of these animalistic instincts? And even if our designated mating seasons would contribute to each species population going up and being at their prime, would it not be possible for mating or pairings in general to happen outside of those designated seasons?"

"Sometimes I question whether you're actually stupid or if you're just putting on a facade and you're as self-aware as I am about these things." Sticks rolled her eyes as she tried to start a fire. "Just drop the science Knux, it ain't gonna help you."

Knuckles simply sat on the ground and started curling up into a spiny ball, feeling forever alone and chewing on the plastic of his reading glasses as the badger started gutting a huge fish.

Sticks couldn't really offer much else to the big lug save for some carefully cooked fish roasted over a big bonfire. She recalled the emeralds and how they lacked any and attempted to start small talk. "So... ya like jewels and shiny things?"

He immediately got out of his lonesome little ball. "Well yeah, they've been my thing for a while! What do ya wanna know about em?!"

"Well, I mean if we can't do anything about the breedin' pair-."

"Yeah, how about we don't mention them?"

"Well~ I was thinking that maybe you- I mean WE... could go on a little trip and get some of those shiny rocks! Put things behind us! Forget all the abuse and feelings of negativity between the two of us!" Really she just wanted to get her hands on some diamonds or other shiny metal ores, but it also kept the tough guy of the group occupied.

"I guess. That'll require a lot of digging but I'm a natural treasure hunter! I can't fly but digging is still _kind of_ my thing!"

"You should definitely do more of it." Sticks started putting bits of fish meat on skewers.

"Okay, so last call, you think I should run home and get my gem collection or should I save that for when the sun comes up?" The badger thought ' _Collection?'_ but instead of having to asked the echidna continued. "Like, I can teach you the basics of gemology, where to find certain stones, symbolism, etc. But it's not for everyone. I mean I'm not fast but I could run home and get it if you wanna see it."

"I mean I could teleport you there but-." A shriek from a nervous badger interrupted Shadow, who seemed to randomly appear on the scene.

Knuckles seemed indifferent. "Oh hey, Shadow."

Sticks took out her boomerang. "What are you doin' here? Last we heard from you, you were tryin' to get some pink hedge pu-."

"Petunias."

Sticks grumbled. "You people and your ratings."

Shadow shrugged, grabbing a skewer and putting it next to the fire. "Well I have nothing better to do. I've been living in a cave with no socialization for a while and seeing how I was just a rebound, I need some way to spend the rest of my time. Not like I can sleep anyway."

"So you did get some! No wonder them two are so worked up!" Sticks took five skewers and held them next to the fire.

"I know..." Shadow rolled his eyes, face just a tinge pink. "The noise is driving me insane. I swear if I hear Sonic's name being shouted in that tone of voice again I might just-!"

"Shaddup and eat ya fish."

"You dare try to give me commands?"

"Do you wanna deal with a cryin' echidna?"

"That blue waffle doesn't deserve to spread his genes. But nothing I can do about it."

"Well if you're so insistent that he shouldn't spread his genes, why aren't you trying to break down that door and Chaos Blast into her?"

Shadow just closed his eyes, shook his head and starting munching away on his fish.

"Good piggy." Sticks did the same, passing a cooked skewer of fish to Knuckles.

 **Chapter end**

 **Boom is a much more self-aware Sonic-related show and game compared to previous animations and games so going back to the original challenge of matching Boom's style, I do hope I'm doing alright. Boom is more of a slice of life comedy with occasional action elements. And I do hope I'm writing something that's legitimately funny and making everyone laugh.**

 **Trivia section:**

 **Hedgehogs:**

 **Hedgehogs are naturally nocturnal. That isn't to say they're never awake during the day. There are some ways to get hedgehogs to arrange their sleep schedules so they can be awake during the day and asleep at night, but hedgehogs in nature are naturally nocturnal which may be a drawback to owning one as a pet if you have a reasonable sleep schedule where you sleep all night.**

 **Another one for the gross/weird fact about hedgehogs when translated to the Sonic cast: they're insectivores. They have varied diets but the best foods for hedgehogs include things like meal worms, slugs and roaches. The fact they eat roaches was a main factor that made me look up what it would be like to own one as a pet but some of their health problems and the fact that they're illegal in my state prevent me from owning one. Makes you wonder what's in those chili dogs... So if you're wondering about the "roaches and ice cream" line, it's another realistic animal behavior translated to anthropomorphic characters as well as a play on the "pickles and ice cream" stereotype when a woman is pregnant (because cravings man!).**

 **Badgers:**

 **Like hedgehogs, badgers are also nocturnal but in areas where there is very little to no human activity they can be observed foraging for food during the day. In addition, a female badger foraging during the day from March to early May might indicate that she's foraging during the day so she can spend nights with her young. A badger's mating season can occur in late summer and early fall but because they can delay implantation of their eggs, that's why you have young born in March and April. Admittedly this unique skill may confuse someone who isn't a zoologist (of the 4am or person who went to college to study the subject variety) in regards to when exactly these little fur balls mate.**

 **Echidnas:**

 **For the observant you might've noticed the very subtle pun on 'echidna train'.**

 **Female echidnas come into season mid to late winter. Males may wake up from hibernation a little earlier, but mid to late winter is when they would start trying to reproduce.**

 **Another interesting fact: echidnas are also animals that are nocturnal. However they are not strictly nocturnal. During warmer months they will start adjusting their sleep schedules to stay awake at night in order to avoid the heat. During winter they'll adjust their sleep schedules to stay awake during the day to forage for food during the day – which also lines up with their mating season.**

 ***Puggle – the term for a baby echidna. So like calling Classic Sonic 'Sonic the Hoglet' you could also call Classic Knuckles 'Puggle Knuckles' or 'Knuckles the Puggle'**

 **Other:**

 **Weird fact for all of the gardeners and bug-phobic! Want a way to keep slugs out of your garden? Lure them into traps with beer! Apparently slugs love beer and will drown themselves in the stuff if you leave cups of beer in your garden. The bad part of it: you'll have cups of dead, drunken slugs. Good part: you'll kill the slugs that were trying to mess with your plants. Since a hedgehog's natural diet includes slugs, I imagine if you went the beer trap route in your garden and happened to either own domestic hedgehogs or wild ones found their way into your garden they could very well be tempted to eat them. Of course I'm no zoologist or veterinarian and I wouldn't know the effects of giving an actual hedgehog beer or bugs drunk on beer. Anthro ones will be fine the more they lean toward human!**


End file.
